


Friday's Child

by zabjade



Series: Far to Go [6]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-05-28 18:08:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 37,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6339856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zabjade/pseuds/zabjade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sunnydale is the perfect Southern California town. Beautiful beaches, picturesque streets, and virtually no crime. Everything is perfect, and everyone is happy. Mostly everyone, that is. Only Dawn and Ben seem to realize that something is wrong. In the midst of all of this, Buffy is curled up happily in her bed with her honey. And Spike wakes up in his crypt with a baby and a soul, neither of which he remembers anything about. Sequel to Thursday’s Child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The tropical sunlight was bright and warm on Buffy’s face. _Bright and warm. Mmmm._ Bright and warm was very much of the good. Her eyes shot open and she bolted out of the bed towards the window. Bright and warm was most definitely _not_ of the good. Not when you had a flammable boyfriend and a sun sensitive baby girl.

She closed the partially open curtain, shutting out the beautiful Entebbe sunshine and leaving herself in darkness. There was just enough ambient light to see that they were both still asleep. She’d been between Spike and the sun, and Thursday’s bassinet was set up next to his side of the bed. It would have been easier to have her on Buffy’s side, but getting his soul had only increased Spike’s need to have the baby as close as possible.

Except, of course, for when he needed to be alone. He was willing to cry in front of both of them, but not to scream and rage and hurt himself. It was never anything serious, but whenever she came back from enjoying the tropical rainforest climate, she found faint bruises and mostly healed cuts. His own soul was hitting him a lot harder than Thursday’s had.

She’d tried calling Ben for advice, but he hadn’t answered. Probably on twelve-hour shifts at the hospital again. Even though they’d locked Glory away, the hospital came first. Buffy approved of that, but it left her without any idea of what she was supposed to do. She’d tried talking to her mom, but everyone back in Sunnydale had been weirdly cheerful and vague on the phone. Maybe they just didn’t want to get into anything serious with the uber long distanceness of the call?

All she really could do was respect Spike’s privacy when he needed it. So, during the five days they’d been there, she’d gone out a few hours every day to explore the city and do touristy things with Thursday, the baby carefully shielded from the sun to avoid nasty sunburns. She had to admit, even while being distracted by worry, the National Botanical Gardens and the Uganda Wildlife Centre had both been pretty amazing. Though it had been much of the weird, seeing wild monkeys hanging out free in the trees of the zoo area of the Centre.

A soft whimper from the bed caught her attention. Spike was twitching slightly, his pained expression visible even in the dimness. The nightmares had started up again. She padded silently back to the bed and snuggled in beside him, feathering light kisses across his face until he woke up.

“Hey, there,” she said softly, smiling reassuringly as his eyes fluttered open. Such pretty eyes, with long, dark lashes and shadows hidden in the blue depths.

"Sorry for wakin' you," he murmured, voice rough with sleep.

“Wasn’t you. I apparently left the curtain open,” she admitted with a grimace. “Which nets me the worst girlfriend and mommy award of the year.”

Spike winced, guilt and dismay splashed across his features. “Oh god, that was me, love. Lookin’ out at the stars like a bloody woolgathering idiot,” he muttered as he sat up to check on Thursday.

Buffy pulled him back against her. “The baby’s fine,” she said soothingly. She wondered for a moment if he’d left the curtain open because of some kind of death wish, but dismissed the thought. The sun wouldn’t have killed Thursday, but it would have hurt her. He would never have done that on purpose, no matter how suicidal he felt. “You would have gone dusty before it even got to her.”

He looked at her with haunted eyes and scooted away from her so there was no physical contact between them. Buffy knew he was thinking of all of the children – including babies – that he had helped Drusilla catch and eat. His own preference had always been older teens and young women, but Dru had liked kids, and back then, for him, food had been food. It hadn’t mattered what age it was, as long as it wasn’t too old.

She wanted to wrap her arms around him, to stroke his hair and kiss away the pain, but she couldn’t. Not yet. He’d only pull away again, feeling like he was too dirty for her to touch. She needed to distract him first. What could she…? Oh, right.

She reached down into her purse – glad she’d left it right next to the bed – and dug out the digital camera she’d brought along. Riley had given it to her for their first and only Valentine’s Day together. It was a high end model, which meant he had either paid out the nose for it, or had taken it from the Initiative. Either way, she felt a sort of vindictive thrill at using it on this trip when it had been meant to document the “perfect, loving, normal” life she was supposed to have had with Riley.

“I took some pictures, yesterday,” she said, getting as close as she could to Spike without touching him. She turned the camera on and brought up the display so she could show him the pictures. She scrolled to one full of colorful birds. “Thursday slept a lot, and didn’t really notice anything even when she _was_ awake, but she liked the birds. They made noises.”

She wished Spike could have been there. He would have loved Thursday’s squeal of delight and Buffy getting a case of the baby-stupids. She’d grinned down at their daughter, her voice going squeaky as she said, _What’s going chirpy-chirpy? Is it da birdies? Does baby hear the pretty birdies? Yes, she does!_

“Damn Angel and his tendency to break things,” she muttered. The Gem of Amara would have been really nice to have.

Spike looked up from the picture to gaze at her and shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t think he actually means to break things,” he said quietly. “He just… does. Poor sod.”

There was a faraway look in his eyes, as if he was thinking of some of the things Angel had broken. Drusilla, Buffy, Spike himself…. Angel, Angelus, whatever name or personality he was wearing, he wormed his way into people, then left them behind, broken and abandoned.

Buffy cautiously slid her arm around Spike, who leaned into her instead of pulling away. He was thinking about the past, but not about any of the people he’d killed. That was definitely an improvement. He let her kiss him, which was even more of an improvement.

He liked it rough, liked it when she used her full slayer strength with him, but he also liked gentle. That was what she gave him, gentle and sweet, to prove to him that she thought he deserved it. That she loved him, and thought he deserved that too. She didn’t say the words. Words could lie. She told him with the honesty of her touch, her skin against his a wordless poem proclaiming exactly how she felt.

Afterwards, he fell asleep, too tired to stay awake and cuddle like he usually did. Or, well, the stay awake part, anyway. He hugged her in his sleep and pressed his face against the side of her neck. She tilted her head just right, and blunt human teeth bit down just shy of actual pain. _The things you have to get used to when dating a vampire,_ she thought fondly as she stroked his hair. _Blood in the fridge, no daytime dates, and sleep hickeys._

She drifted off to sleep with him and into troubled dreams. _A marionette version of Willow being directed by a dark cloud as she played with hand puppets that looked like Giles, her mom, and her friends. Dawn huddled in fear on a giant Lego version of Sunnydale while the Lego people walked around with mechanical precision. Tara, bound and gagged while Buffy herself stood over her with a shining green key. The lonely, angry wail of a baby that turned into a cry she recognized as one of hunger…._

Buffy woke up with a sigh and untangled herself from Spike to feed the baby. _At least she didn’t interrupt the sex this time,_ she thought as Thursday latched on. She gazed down at her daughter as she nursed, the warm feelings of love and hormones washing away the dread from her dream.

 

**…**

 

It felt odd, it did, driving without the radio on. But Buffy and the sprog were both asleep, and Spike didn’t want his music keeping them awake. He idly wondered if that was a soul thing, but decided it was just a him thing. If he actually gave a toss about someone, he did at least try to be considerate. Didn’t always succeed, but he at least _tried_.

God, it was all so confusing. He had known some of what to expect, but his own soul hadn’t been the same as Thursday’s. Remembering the things he had done had been horrifying and sickening, but there had been a distance. The shared soul was innocent and had had nothing at all to do with those actions. And it hadn’t quite fit right, adding another layer between him and the horror. His own soul, though? It fit just right, and it wasn’t exactly innocent. He may not have known what she was on about, but he’d said yes to Dru turning him. Every death, every atrocious act, had stemmed from that ignorant agreement.

The sprog’s soul may not have fully prepared him, but it had been a road map of sorts. He already knew that wallowing in guilt was pointless and ultimately selfish, but at the same time, he needed to let himself feel and process that guilt and the pain associated with it. He was working on it. He should have had at least another week in Uganda, getting used to his soul and recovering from the trials, but instead, he was driving the DeSoto from LAX to Sunnydale while Buffy slept in the passenger seat and Thursday did the same in her car seat in the back.

He'd been the one to insist on it, even though he really didn’t feel up to interacting with anyone else, not even Joyce and the Bit. He’d have to pretend he was fine, and, honestly, he wasn’t. Not yet anyway. Buffy had been having troubling dreams, though, ones that coincided with Thursday waking up wailing in terror. Something was up, and it was a hell of a lot more important than his personal issues.

He glanced over at Buffy. So many different aspects to her. Warrior, nurturer, world-weary woman, wide-eyed little innocent of a girl, and wantonly passionate lover. She could be a selfish bitch one moment and utterly selfless the next. She could be deeply understanding and kind about things while still being the same person who once taunted him with her blood while he was noticeably suffering from starvation. She wasn’t a perfect shining thing. She was better than that. She was wonderfully, gloriously _real_ , warts and halo and all.

_Always going to be by your side, Slayer,_ he thought, turning his attention fully back to the road as the neared the Welcome to Sunnydale sign. He just barely fought the urge to at least clip the bloody thing with his car. _No matter what, I’ll always have your back._

Then they were in Sunnydale, and everything froze and shattered into a million jagged pieces.

 

**…**

 

_Blackness. Tumbling. Wrenching. Falling, falling, falling. Soft bed. Warmth. Where…?_

Buffy jerked awake, disoriented and feeling like something was deeply, horribly wrong. Then things settled and she realized she was snuggled up in bed with her sweetie. Everything was alright as long as he was there.

“You okay?” he asked sleepily before nuzzling her neck.

“I’m fine,” she said.

And it was true, for the most part. Something still didn’t feel quite right, but there was no reason to burden Riley with it. He’d been up late into the night hunting demons for Willow, after all. Hmmm. Maybe Willow would know why she was feeling out of sorts? Willow knew everything. With that comforting thought, Buffy drifted back to sleep, held firmly in Riley’s safe and loving arms.


	2. Chapter 2

Hard stone beneath him. A strange feeling of heavy lightness and completeness, like someone had filled in the missing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle with weighted helium balloons that somehow fit perfectly. A baby’s loud wail of distress. A baby? Why was there…? What was…?

_He watches, a helpless prisoner in his own body as he scoops the crying infant from its crib. The monster that he is finds babies a tasty little snack, but prefers his meals a bit older._ No, you mustn’t! _he cries out in his mind, knowing with sick certainty that it will do no good. The little morsel is handed over to Dru, who cradles the baby against her chest with a look of tender affection. It’s made all the more terrible by the fact that it’s genuine._

_She smiles and coos, then her face changes, and her fangs savage the tiny, delicate throat. He wants to stop her. He tries._ God, _he tries. But all his body does is smile while thoughts of how beautiful Dru is swirl around the part of him silently crying out in horror at it all. And still, the baby wails. The sound is somehow achingly familiar, like he almost knows exactly what it means…._

Spike rolled and fell off of the sarcophagus with a jarring thud. There was something inside of him. Something that warmed and burned and smoothed out the edges while cutting at him with jagged bits of broken glass. It hurt and healed, giving depth while taking away an odd sort of innocence. Heaven and hell having it out in a beehive inside of him. What the bloody hell _was_ it? What was happening to him? What…?

The baby cried again, pulling him out of his confused thoughts. There was a baby somewhere in his crypt. _Why_ was there a baby somewhere in his crypt? _Oh god, I must have picked one up as a snack._ He was a monster. He knew the sun was up. He should get up and go out into it, let the light cleanse the taint of him from the world. He…. Was bloody well chipped, wasn’t he? Why would he have brought a baby to the crypt to eat? And why was he whinging about on the floor when the sprog obviously needed something?

He slowly got to his feet and looked around, spotting the sprog in a car seat on the floor. Next to it – _her,_ his mind insisted – was the cooler he usually kept in the DeSoto and what looked like a diaper bag. He carefully picked her up, and the crying immediately eased, though it didn’t stop entirely. Her eyes fixed on his face with a disturbing amount of recognition.

_This sprog_ knows _me,_ he realized. And she felt strangely right in his arms, like he’d held her before and knew exactly how he was meant to be doing it.

_He rolls his eyes in amused exasperation as the barmy chit holds the doll out to him. “Come on, we both have to practice before the baby’s born.”_

What the bloody hell? It had felt like a memory, but nothing like that had ever happened. Had it? The woman in it had seemed familiar, but too fuzzy for him to make out. Was she the mother? None of this was making any bloody sense, and it was starting to seriously brass him off.

Letting off some steam by throwing things about sounded like a good bit of fun, but he fought off that urge. It wouldn’t do a lick of good, and might end up injuring the sprog. The thought of drop kicking the sodding thing across the crypt flashed through his mind, immediately followed by a tidal wave of self-loathing that nearly brought him to his knees. What the hell was _wrong_ with him? Why did he care about some random kid? Why had the memory of feeding one to Dru hurt so badly?

He absently nuzzled the fussy little thing, breathing in her scent. Warm and calming with what he would have sworn was vampire mingled with…  slayer? Couldn’t be. That was bollocks, that was. Had to be goin’ ‘round the bloody bend from whatever had been done to him. Still and all….  

He closed his eyes and sniffed her again. What else smelled like slayer? Maybe…. No, no that was definitely slayer, and…. There was something else. Something….  Everyone had their own unique scent, but there were family markers mixed in with them. Spike’s sense of smell was good enough – better than that of the average vampire, honestly – to pick up on those markers.

_She’s mine,_ he thought in disbelieving wonder. No, that couldn’t…. She _couldn’t_ be his. Getting the one thing he’d regretted never being able to have as a vampire? That was the sort of thing that happened to Angelus, the unappreciative sod. He was given gifts like the slayer on a silver platter, and he stomped all over them before throwing them away.

God, why did he _care_? She was the bloody _slayer_ , not some goddess that his grandsire had been unworthy of. _She’s a warrior,_ he thought. _She deserved more respect than that wanker ever gave her. That’s why I care._ Honored enemy and all that rot. That had to be it, right?

He wandered to his chair in a daze and sat down, gazing at the baby. She still looked the same, but everything about her seemed suddenly different. She was… perfect. Not at exactly _happy_ , mind, but perfect. If not for the unpleasant connotations, he’d think she looked like an angel, snuggled there in his arms and wrapped in a wool blanket he was pretty sure had been hand knitted.

Another flash of unremembered memory. _He’s sitting in the magic shop with his feet up on the research table, knitting a blanket and wearing a kilt for some unfathomable reason. Looked bloody good on him, too. The Slayer is sitting beside him, her gaze oddly tender as she glances up from the book she’s reading._

He was more or less a demon animated corpse. An incredibly good looking corpse, mind you, but still essentially a walking dead man. That meant he couldn’t have children, but – possible or not – this sprog was unquestionably _his_. That was strange enough, but with the _Slayer_? She was definitely there in the scent, but he’d been too gobsmacked by his own to pay it proper attention. What the sodding hell had _happened_ during the time he couldn’t remember?

He closed his eyes, struggling to sort it all out. Somehow, he’d ended up getting the Slayer pregnant. That was a memory he’d seriously considering giving someone else’s left nut – despite the sudden stab of guilt at the thought – to remember. Mortal enemy or not, Slayer was a bit of alright in the looks department. All bouncy golden hair, perky tits, and lithe little body. Yeah, he would definitely like to have the memory of the mystery conception, especially since his lack of dustiness meant he couldn’t have raped the poor girl.

Probably a spell involved or somesuch. _Of course it had to’ve been a spell, you git,_ he thought with a disgusted snort. _How else are you meant to get a sprog from dead spendings?_ Right, so, a spell that had gotten Slayer up the duff, and then someone had done _something_ to him. Something that made him feel….

His eyes snapped open. _Oh god,_ he thought in horrified revulsion, feeling both violated and strangely grateful. _Had to’ve been Red. She used one of them Orbs of Thesulah on me._ He had a sodding _soul_. That was why he felt like this.

Now that he wasn’t as distracted by the sprog, he could feel it again. A horribly wonderful ball of contradictions buzzing about inside of him. He wanted the bloody thing _out_ …. But – much to his own horror –  he desperately wanted to keep it too. It would help keep him from hurting anyone. Oh god, the sodding thing had _infected_ him. He was a _vampire_. He was supposed to kill and destroy and leave nothing but ruin in his wake.

He should only want it gone. There should be no conflict. It was horrible and unnatural And yet… it also felt good. It was like a red hot poker twisting inside of him, but there was something warm and soft and gentle about it, too.

Was this how Angel had felt all these years? _How did he do it?_ Spike wondered in sudden disgust as he thought of the two years Angelus had desperately tried to get back into Darla’s good graces. He’d mostly killed rapists and murderers during that time if he recalled correctly, but those people – no matter how despicable that’d been – had likely had others who cared about them.

His thoughts were interrupted by the little one’s fussing turning into full blown crying again. _She’s hungry,_ he thought with absolute certainty. He looked around blankly, as if a banquet fit for a more or less human infant would just appear out of the ether. More or less…. She was his kid and smelled a bit of vampire. Did she need blood, despite being alive? Did he even _have_ any blood? He had the oddest feeling that it had actually been quite a while since he’d last been here in the crypt.

He stood up and put the sprog back in her car seat, much to her loudly proclaimed displeasure. Then he checked the fridge. Empty, as he’d suspected. _Bloody hell,_ he thought in tired defeat. What was he supposed to do now? Maybe…. He glanced over at the screaming baby and the bag and cooler beside the car seat.

A look in the bag revealed a couple of empty bottles, several disposable nappies, and some spit up cloths. All good things to have, but he needed something to put in those bottles. He opened up the cooler. _Thank God._ Mostly melted ice and five glass jars, three full of blood and two of milk.  He was pretty sure she’d refuse it cold, but that wouldn’t be a problem.

“Luckily for you, missy,” he said as he stood up and went to the microwave with the jars and one of the bottles, “I happen to be an expert at heating fluids to human body temp.”

Was it safe to microwave things for a baby? A few times shouldn’t hurt, and it wasn’t like he had easy access to a stove and double boiler, now was it? One of the milk jars and two of the blood went into the refrigerator while the other one of milk went into the microwave.

_Okay, so, she’s my sprog, but why is she here ‘stead of with her mum?_ he wondered, the question keeping his mind occupied while his hands – which seemed to know what they were doing – got the bottle ready. Had the Slayer abandoned her? Too much vampire for her mates to tolerate or somesuch? Shouldn’t there have been more to feed her if that was the case? Slayer could be a right cruel bitch at times, but she wouldn’t be that heartless to an innocent sprog. _Maybe I’ve custody for the weekend, and Slayer is coming to get her soon?_

What was he supposed to do? Obviously, he’d taken care of this baby before, but he didn’t remember any of it. What was he bloody well supposed to _do_? He took a deep breath to push back the rising panic. He could sense the sun, waiting just outside his crypt, so there wasn’t much he could do right now. Didn’t seem safe to be running about under a blanket while trying to carry the sprog.

_The sprog…._ He didn’t even know his own kid’s name. He was a terrible father. He was going to end up dropping her or killing her in some horrifying way without even meaning to. Oh god, all of the children he’d killed or helped to kill. Tears pricked at his eyes, held back only through sheer willpower. He didn’t deserve a child of his own. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t….

The microwave beeped. He _had_ to do this. He had to stop being a blubbering wanker whinging on about deserving and whatnot. The only one in this situation who deserved anything at all was the sprog, and what she deserved was to be taken care of. He’d do what he could for her, and if the Slayer didn’t come by nightfall, he’d go to her instead. Until then, he’d put aside what the bloody soul was doing to him and take care of his little girl.

 

**…**

 

Something was wrong. Something was _missing_ , and Buffy couldn’t quite figure out what. She should be happy. It was a beautiful Sunnydale day, and everything should have been perfect. But it wasn’t. There was the persistent feeling of wrongness, her breasts felt painfully tight and heavy, and she’d nearly broken Riley’s hand when he’d tried for some pre-breakfast nookie.

She looked up from that breakfast – two perfectly made sunny-side-up eggs, bacon laid out in a smile, a small plate of toast, both orange juice and milk – and smiled apologetically at him again. She couldn’t believe she’d done that. Riley was always such a gentle, considerate lover, and she’d treated him like he was trying to rape her or something. The thought of sex with him had just felt so… so _ooky_ for some reason.

_Maybe my period is coming early?_ she thought dubiously. That could explain some of the uber weird going on with her breasts, but not the serious case of the no touchies. Another thought suddenly occurred to her. What if… what if she was pregnant? They’d always been so careful about using condoms, but those could fail. What if there had been a hole? She couldn’t do this. She didn’t know how to handle being pregnant.

_She’s feeling crampy and icky as she settles onto the couch. Someone brings her a cup of hot cocoa and a heating pad, even though she should really be the one pampering_ him _right now, considering his condition._

_“Whale night then, is it, Slayer?” he asks. He’s all blurry, but she only knows one person who talks like that._

_“Oh god, yes.”_

She didn’t remember any of that, but the way it made her feel…. Warm and loved and…. The tight pain in her breasts suddenly eased a little. _Oh god, I’m_ leaking _,_ she thought in a sort of numb horror as she looked down at her chest. There was _stuff_ coming out of her with a weirdly pleasant sort of achiness. Did this mean she really was pregnant? Wait, that wasn’t how it worked, was it? You didn’t start lactating before you even started showing, right? So it couldn’t be pregnancy, right?

She hurriedly crossed her arm over her chest and looked around the kitchen island anxiously. Dawn was looking at her funny while Riley just munched away at his breakfast with a sort of bovine contentedness and Mom read the newspaper.

What was happening to her? _Why_ was it happening? Was it some weird kind of curse? Or… or some kind of slayer thing? Maybe if you lived to be twenty, you got some kind of anti-demon boob juice. Boob juice…. Milk. She was leaking _milk_ for some reason.

_I haven’t fed my baby._ Everything seemed to freeze for a moment. Baby? She didn’t have a baby. Did she? _I have a baby,_ she thought with absolute certainty. That was what was wrong. That was what was missing. She wasn’t pregnant _now_ , but she had been. For some reason, she didn’t remember it. That wasn’t the most important thing right now, though. Her baby was out there somewhere without her, hungry and alone with no one to protect her.

“Where’s my baby?” she blurted out suddenly, cutting off the discussion about the weather Riley and her mom had gotten into.

The two of them looked like she’d jumped past a second head and had sprouted a third. Dawn, though…. Dawn had a look of mingled hope and fear, like she desperately wanted to believe something but was afraid to.

“Jeez, Buffy, it’s just a _doll_ ,” the teen said, her tone carefully exasperated. Riley and Mom gave both of them indulgent smiles and went back to their conversation. “Come to my room, and I’ll show you where it is.”

Rage and the urge to cry rose up in a choking tide. She wanted her baby. She had to find her baby, and Dawn was saying…. “It’s not a damn _doll_! I want –”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s your _favorite_ doll,” Dawn said, standing up and walking over to Buffy’s chair. “Just come with me, and we… we can talk about why I borrowed it, okay?”

Riley gave Buffy an indulgent smile. “Go on, sweetheart. It’s important for you and your sister to bond.”

She stared at him for a moment, then looked back at Dawn. Her sister’s eyes were full of desperate pleading. She needed to find her baby, but…. Something was clearly going on. She was pretty sure now that Dawn knew this wasn’t about a doll. She was also pretty sure the baby wasn’t anywhere in the house. She would have heard the crying.

Dawn knew something, but she wasn’t going to talk about it in front of Riley and their mom, both of whom were acting kind of weird now that she thought about it. They were too calm. Too placid. Why weren’t they freaking?

Buffy made her decision and slowly stood up, keeping one arm against her chest as she followed Dawn across the house and up the stairs. Instead of going into Dawn’s room, however, her sister pulled down the attic stairs. She waved Buffy up first into what should have been a storage space…. And wasn’t.

“What is this?” Buffy asked, looking around the remodeled attic with growing fear. “What is all this? Why is it like this?”

She didn’t remember this. She should have remembered the attic being turned into a nice little bedroom complete with skylight. Compared to an unremembered pregnancy, this was nothing, but it felt like a two-ton straw being tossed onto her camel-y back. She fumbled for the chair in front of Dawn’s desk and sat down heavily in it while the younger girl pulled up the attic stairs.

The world felt like it was spinning. Nothing made any sense. She needed her baby. She needed…. She frowned. Who did she need? There was someone who could help, who would stroke her hair and whisper that she was strong and could handle whatever life threw at her. That he had her back, no matter what.

“This is my room, now,” Dawn said, sitting on the comfy looking futon under one of the lower parts of the roof. “Spike and Xander fixed it up for me so my old room could be turned into a nursery for the baby.”

The thought of Xander and Spike doing anything together – and the thought of Spike actually being in her house for that matter – was almost as weird as everything else, but that wasn’t what Buffy latched onto.

“Where’s my baby? Why don’t Mom and Riley seem to know I have one? Why don’t I remember being pregnant?” She wrung her hands as the questions poured out of her, making the bones in her fingers ache. She stood up abruptly and started pacing in small circles. “I should talk to Willow. She’ll know what to do. She _always_ knows exactly what to do. She’s Willow. She can fix this. She, she could do a locator spell.”

“No!” Dawn shouted. Buffy stopped pacing at the outburst and stared at her in surprise. “You, you, um… don’t remember being pregnant for a very good reason that you probably wouldn’t believe. And you can’t go to Willow, because…. Uh. Because she’s busy! We should talk to Tara instead.”

“Uh, Dawn, I think this is a little too serious for Tara,” she said dubiously. Willow’s girlfriend could barely even tie her shoes on her own. “She’s sweet, really, but… I don’t think she’s really the one to go to for this.”

“Tara’s good with little magics,” Dawn cut in. “She can do something as simple and mindless as a locator spell.” Dawn looked sick and sad as she spoke. “Just… please, Buffy, trust me, and we’ll get Thursday back.”

Thursday? Was that the name of her baby? Why the hell would she name her child something like that? It was a day, not a name.

_“Her name is Thursday,” Spike growls, stomping along beside her. He’s wearing a kilt for some reason and a baggy sweater._

_“That’s not a name,” she huffs in exasperation._

“Buffy?” Dawn said, her voice anxious. “You have to realize something’s wrong. You _have_ to. You’re not as Stepfordy as all the others. Please, Buffy, _please_ just trust me.”

She looked young and scared, like she wanted to curl up under the covers and hide from something. Why would Dawn feel that way? Buffy wasn’t sure, but her sister was right. Something _was_ wrong, and it wasn’t just the missing baby. Most of her instincts were screaming at her to go to Willow, but others….

She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Okay. I’ll trust you. I guess we’ll go talk to Tara.”


	3. Chapter 3

Dawn watched as Buffy paced in small circles of agitation. The attic had plenty of floor space – even with the insulation and drywall Spike and Xander had put in – but ceiling space was another matter. Pacing just didn’t have the right feel if you had to hunch while you did it.

“How much longer do we have to wait?” Buffy asked. “ _Why_ do we have wait?”

 _Until after Riley leaves,_ Dawn thought. _So Willow is distracted getting his morning report and giving him his next assignment._ But she didn’t say any of it out loud.

“Ten more minutes,” was what she did say, after checking her watch. Riley always left at nine-thirty. Ten minutes would give him a seven-minute head start.

“Okay, but _why_?” her sister asked in frustration. “I need to find my baby. We’ll do things your way and talk to Tara, but we need to go _now_.”

“Ten more minutes,” Dawn repeated.

Buffy looked like she was going to argue, but just shook her head with a sigh and continued pacing. She muttered something about really wanting to talk to Willow, and Dawn had to fight back the urge to cry.

Buffy was finally there – the _real_ Buffy and not the imaginary one everyone else had been interacting with – but she wasn’t going to swoop in and save the day this time. No, she was all invasion of the Stepford pod people just like everyone else. Well, _mostly_. Buffy remembered Thursday. Not any of the details, apparently, but she remembered that she had a baby.

 _That means she’s not fully under Willow’s control, and Bitty Bit still exists,_ Dawn thought, her gaze going over to the small pile of stuff tucked into a corner and covered with a blanket. Since they had been taking a private jet, Buffy and Spike had packed everything of Thursday’s that would fit in his monster of a car. A few things had been left behind, though, and had begun fading away until Dawn had collected it all and brought it up to her attic.

Ten minutes seemed like forever when spent in an attic with an agitated slayer mommy, but they finally passed. Dawn led the way out and down to the front door. She stared at the door handle for a moment, the fear that had been her constant companion for the past three weeks nearly choking her. She didn’t want to go out there. She just wanted to go back to the safety of her attic and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist.

 _You can do this,_ she told herself. She _had_ to do this. For Buffy and Spike and her innocent, helpless little niece. She took a deep breath and grabbed the handle, ready to go out into Willow’s Sunnydale.

 

**…**

 

_:Three weeks and two days ago:_

_There should be a law,_ Dawn thought grumpily as her mother’s voice drifted up to her, _about waking people up in the summer._ Still, food sounded good, so she got up out of her cozy bedding and changed out of her pajamas.

It was really nice having the entire attic to herself. All she needed was her own bathroom – so not possible, and she knew it – a hot plate, rice cooker, and an electric kettle and it’d be her own awesome little apartment. She already had the mini-fridge, plus her own TV. Both had been suggested by Spike, who was the coolest not-quite-brother-in-law in the entire history of ever.

Freshly clothed in jeans and a t-shirt, Dawn pushed down the attic stairs and headed down. She’d just pushed them up again when one of the bedroom doors closed. _Wait, if mom just called up to let me know breakfast is ready, who’s…._ She turned around, fear hammering in her heart even before she saw Riley.

Oh god, he was in the house again. She’d thought he’d left town months ago, but here he was, barging in uninvited. She didn’t know if that fact that it was morning made it creepier or not. Had he known Buffy and Spike were gone? Had he come to hurt Spike again, or to be all creepy and weird and sleep in their bed while they were gone?

Her skin crawled at the thought. Definitely creepier to find him in the morning if it meant he’d spent the night. She could imagine it all too well and really wished she couldn’t. Riley sneaking into their home like it was his personal playground, going into Buffy and Spike’s room and… and _touching_ himself in their bed.

 _I have to burn the sheets,_ she thought numbly. _Bleach the mattress, maybe. Definitely lots of air freshener._ She still got nightmares sometimes from when she’d seen Riley use a plastic stake on Spike. It would have been horrifying enough even if Spike hadn’t been pregnant at the time. And then… hearing him talk about the whole thing being rape? She shuddered and glared at the intruder.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

She told herself that she wasn’t afraid. That Riley couldn’t hurt her. _He’s a trained soldier, and I’m just a kid,_ part of her wailed in terror. And Buffy wasn’t there to make him go away. Her mother was, though. _And Mom once smacked_ Spike _upside the head with an axe._

Riley just gave her an odd look, like _she_ was the one all crazy in the head and excessively stab-happy. “I practically live here now, kiddo. You know that.”

Mom came up the stairs at that point, but instead of running off the crazy jerkface, she smiled vacantly at the two of them. “Come on now, you three,” she chided gently. “You know what Willow always says about breakfast being the most important meal of the day.”

Dawn just stood there for a moment, too confused to move as Riley followed her mother down the stairs. This was all wrong. All so very wrong. Mom should have threatened to call the police and tossed Riley out on his ear, not invited him down to breakfast. And what had she meant, you three?

 _Maybe Riley has a frog in his pocket Mom knows about,_ she thought inanely as she finally got her feet to move and take her down the stairs. She padded into the kitchen and took her usual place at the island. Riley had his stupid, nasty butt planted in Spike’s seat. She was going to have to bleach that, too.

It was a private thing, but both Dawn and Mom had been told why Buffy and Spike had gone to Africa. Spike would be going through enough adjusting to his own soul. He didn’t need to be assaulted by Riley stench on top of everything else. She gave Riley one last death glare before pulling her gaze away and noticing some more of the uber weird.

There were four breakfasts set out on the island, each consisting of two perfectly made sunny-side-up eggs, smiley face bacon, two slices of toast, and both orange juice and milk. Out of eight eggs, none of the yolks had broken and they were all the same size and shape. It wasn’t really _that_ weird, but with everything else, and the whole extra place setting thing, it all felt _off_ somehow.

“Dawn, sweetie, are you alright?”

She looked up at her mom. “I….” She stared down at her plate. Something was wrong. So very, very wrong, and it was affecting her mother, too. She forced a smile. “I’m fine, Mom, just thinking about what I’m going to do for the day.”

What she was going to do was get out of the house of crazy as soon as she could and talk to Tara. She knew that she should probably talk to Giles or Willow instead, but her sister’s watcher was kind of intimidating for an old guy, and Willow…. She’d felt weird around Willow ever since the redhead had lost her arm. In a way, that had been Dawn’s fault, and she just didn’t know how to act around her.

Dawn took a deep breath and dug into her breakfast. She’d act as normal as she could in this normal-challenged house, then get out and find Tara. Tara would talk to Willow, and everything would be fine. They’d have everything fixed before Buffy and Spike came home.

 

**…**

 

Walking out into a completely deserted Sunnydale would have been freaky, but what Dawn actually encountered was kind of worse. People going about their business with mechanical precision, all vacant smiles and bland, cheerful greetings. It was like everyone had been turned into living mannequins or something.

What had happened? Was everyone like this? A chill went up her spine as she suddenly wondered if the Scoobies had been affected as well. _No,_ she told herself firmly. She couldn’t be the only one in town not affected. That was just stupid. She forced the thoughts out of her head and hurried to the Magic Box where Tara had gotten a summer job stocking the shelves.

At first, everything seemed normal. Giles and Xander were sitting at the research table with a box of donuts while Anya manned the cash register. Willow and Tara were cuddling while looking through the merchandise. Then Xander threw a jelly donut at Anya’s face and snorted grossly in laughter when it hit. Ew. That was just wrong, but in a different way from the other things Dawn had seen.

“Jeez, Xander, what are you _doing_?” she blurted out. “You’re acting like a flying buttmonkey.”

“Hey, Dawnie, everything okay?” Willow asked, turning towards her.

Dawn’s mouth suddenly went dry and the air felt thick. Willow’s arm. It was…. She felt sick looking at it. It was _wrong_ and not just because it was a scaly demon arm with spines and claws at the end. It was black, but not like the actual pigment. No, this was a complete absence of light. The… _thing_ attached to Willow’s arm ate up light and goodness and spewed out darkness. And no one even seemed to notice but her.

“Um… Everything’s okay,” Dawn managed to choke out. “I just, um, need to talk to Tara for a moment.”

Tara glanced up at the mention of her name, then down, and Dawn’s sick feeling increased. The awesome witch who had done the biggest part of the spell to seal Glory looked so timid, even more than she had when they’d first met.

“W-Willow can help you,” Tara whispered. “Willow’s th-the best.” She smiled at her girlfriend in shy adoration. “You d-don’t need me for anything.”

“No, that’s not true.” Oh god, what had happened to Tara? She had to get her out of here. Had to….

“Dawn?” Willow’s voice wasn’t quite as friendly anymore, and her eyes were narrowed in suspicion. “Come with me to the backroom, okay?”

Dawn didn’t want to go with her, but she felt like something was _pushing_ at her, forcing her forward. She couldn’t fight it. She stopped trying, deciding to conserve her strength. At least, that’s what she told herself she was doing as she followed Willow into the training room.

She expected to find what was usually there. The pommel horse and other gym type equipment, weapons on the walls, mats on the floor. It was gone. All of her sister’s equipment, just _gone_ , like she had never been. Instead, there was all kinds of magical… _stuff_.

A big cauldron over a somehow smokeless fire, floating lanterns that seemed to have glowing fairies trapped inside, big silken pillows hovering a few inches above the floor, what looked like a tiger-sized Ms. Kitty Fantastico gnawing on what looked horribly like human bones….

 _Demon bones,_ she thought numbly. _Have to be demon bones._ In fact, they did look a little weird, like the proportions were off somehow.

“What’s wrong, sweetie? Aren’t you happy?” Willow asked.

“I-I should really go home,” Dawn said, her voice coming out small and weak. Freaky arm and creepy demon bone pile or not, this was _Willow_. There was no reason to be afraid. Right?

“You can talk to me, you know. I won’t bite.” Willow smiled, a creepy smile that was too wide and made Dawn think of a hungry shark.

“I… uh… it’s just, um….” Dawn floundered for something to say other than, _oh my god, you’ve gone insane._ A crazy magic user with a crazy arm.

“Sunnydale’s such a pretty little town, don’t you think? Such a nice, _perfect_ place to live, isn’t it?” She lifted up the demon arm, magical energy forming between her claws. “There’s nothing wrong with Sunnydale, Dawnie. If you aren’t happy, maybe something’s wrong with you.” Her eyes widened suddenly as if she’d just realized something. “Oh! I know. You aren’t really human, are you, sweetie? You’re an ancient ball of energy. You know, if you just aren’t happy here, I can always turn you back. Do you want to go back to that? It might be fun. Peaceful maybe. What do you think?”

“I… I....” Dawn wanted to turn around and flee, but that would be a terrible idea, and she knew it. Instead, she let out the tears she’d been holding back. “You’re just so perfect, Willow, you know? I… I wanted to make you a gift with Tara’s help, but there’s nothing that’s good enough for you, is there?”

Willow’s expression immediately softened and the magic vanished from her claws. “Oh, sweetheart, it’s okay.” Dawn did everything in her power not to flinch when the woman came over and put her hand on her shoulder. At least it was the hand and not the claw. Dawn didn’t think she could have taken that. “All I want is your love, and for you to be happy, okay? Can you do that for me, honey?”

Dawn forced a smile. “Of course I can.”

“That’s a good girl,” Willow said. “You keep being a good girl, okay? And if you’re unhappy, you just let me know. I’ll fix you right up. I promise.”

 

**…**

 

_:Present:_

Going into the Magic Box was painful, but Dawn was expected to spend at least part of every day there to bask in the wonder of Willow. Familiarity hadn’t done much to lessen the hurt every time she stepped into the shop. Xander acting like a big kid as he shot spit balls at poor Anya, who had been made a caricature of herself with absolutely no thoughts beyond money and sex. Giles being a toadying fool anytime Willow interacted with him. And then there was Tara. It all stabbed Dawn right in the heart every time she saw it.

“Hey, Buffster, Dawnmeister!” Xander called out with a big, stupid grin as they walked in. Dawn wished she could claw it right off of his face. It wasn’t fair at all, and she knew it. It wasn’t Xander’s fault that Willow apparently liked him with the maturity of a twelve-year-old.

She ignored him, her eyes sweeping the main part of the store. No sign of Willow, which meant she was in the backroom with Riley, talking about the demons – some of them neutral or even flat-out peaceful – he’d slaughtered for not being fully under Willow’s control. Would they try to kill Buffy if they found out she remembered a baby that wasn’t supposed to exist anymore? _I won’t let it happen,_ Dawn vowed.

“Stay here for a few minutes while I talk to Tara,” she whispered to Buffy. “And don’t talk to anyone about the baby, they’ll want to bring Willow in on it. Something majorly funktastic is definitely going down, but Willow is too important to bother with things right now.”

She fought back the urge to hug Buffy as emotions warred on her big sister’s face. Buffy wanted – _needed_ – her baby, but she wouldn’t be able to do much to fight against the desire to worship Willow. Not yet, anyway.

“Yeah, okay,” Buffy finally said, sounding heart-breakingly defeated.

Dawn hated that she had caused that. No. It was _Willow_. Willow had done that, had reduced the freaking _Chosen One_ to a pathetic little Willow groupie. But they’d fix it. Tara would know what to do, and they’d _fix it_.

While Buffy went to join Xander and Giles, Dawn slipped into the shelves to find Tara. The witch was kneeling beside a box of unstocked merchandise, hunched in on herself with a sort of vacant expression as she pawed at the various magical things. Dawn knelt on the other side of the box, helping to sort through it.

“Mr. Macho was bragging last night about some kills, but I think they were all pesty ones,” she said quietly. “Doctor Undoom got some more of the goodies hidden away. And....” She stopped and looked around nervously, lowering her voice even more. “Buffy is here for real now.”

“I like stars,” Tara said with a goofy giggle as she pulled out a pentagram amulet. She played with it a little bit. “Pointy end up, pointy end down.”

“I think it’s a good thing,” Dawn said, easily figuring out what the older woman meant. “She’s under Willow’s spell, but she remembers that she has a baby somewhere.”

Tara’s head jerked up and she actually met Dawn’s eyes, all pretenses of still being under the spell suddenly gone. “She remembers Thursday?” she asked, barely leashed excitement in her voice.

“Yeah. Well, not that she’s Thursday or any other details. Just that there’s a baby, and she wants to find and protect it.”

Instead of looking disappointed by that, the fact that Buffy didn’t remember any of the particulars seemed to give Tara hope. “This is perfect,” she whispered.

Dawn eyed her dubiously.

“If Buffy is here and feeling the protective instincts towards the baby,” Tara explained, “then that means Spike is here and is still fueling the So’voriku ritual.”

 _Fueling the…. What?_ Spike was fueling the ritual? “Spike is doing what, now?”

“Everyone sort of stopped researching it once we found out what directly affected Buffy and Spike, but I….” Tara stopped talking, her expressive face scrunching up with pain. She was noticeably fighting back tears. She took a deep breath and continued. “I kept researching it so one day, when we were ready, Willow and I could….” She stopped talking again for a moment and hugged herself. “After the initial part of the ritual, it’s kept active and fueled by the submissive partner’s capacity to love.”

Dawn stared blankly at Tara, letting that sink in. Willow had all kinds of dark, icky magic and things that she could suck down magic from, but Spike…. Spike was the closest you could get to an evil vampire version of a freaking care bear. And if he had his soul now, the evil part was at least diluted. “Does that mean…?”

Tara nodded, her eyes gleaming. “The ritual has a deeper power source than Willow does. We can use it to set Buffy and Spike free and find the baby, assuming she isn’t with Spike. And that means we’re going to have a pissed off mommy and daddy with superpowers on our side.”


	4. Chapter 4

Other than the whole weird baby thing, everything was normal. Xander was his usual adorkable, childlike self. Giles was going on and on about things in his books that Willow would like, though she could probably do it all so much better. Anya was too busy talking about sex and money – and the possibility of combining the two – to even notice Xander shooting spitballs at her. It was all perfectly normal.

_So why does it all seem_ wrong _somehow?_ Buffy wondered uneasily. And just how long did it take to do a locator spell, anyway? It had to have been at least ten minutes since Dawn had come back from the shelves to snag a few of Buffy’s hairs before going down into the basement with Tara.

She should talk to Willow. Willow would have had the spell done instantly. Buffy didn’t know what Dawn’s issue was, but as soon as Riley was done getting his assignments, she was going to talk to Willow about the baby.

_No!_ Suddenly, a big, powerful _something_ rose inside of her like a leviathan, insisting that she was _not_ telling Willow.

The force of it almost knocked Buffy out of her chair at the research table. What the hell? What was that? It felt strangely familiar, even though she was sure she’d never experienced it before. Had she?

_She scrambles away from the body underneath her, the throbbing pleasure of afterglow a horrible counterpoint to the nausea roiling through her over what she’s done.  A sound distracts her from thinking about it. Spike is standing now and pulling his jeans back up. He doesn’t look at her – his head down, eyes glued to the ground – as his shaking hands work the zipper and rebuckle his belt._

_Once that’s done, his legs don’t seem able to hold him up anymore, and he drops to the ground to huddle against a gravestone. She wants to blame him for what just happened, but knows she can’t. She did it. It’s her fault. She… she_ violated _him. What is she supposed to say to him? What is she supposed to do? Before she even has a chance to figure it out, Spike fumbles through his pockets for his lighter and a cigarette._

_Something rises up, feeling almost like her slayer instincts. She pounces on Spike again, and he tries to get away, but she’s stronger than he is, and he can’t even fight back. She takes away his cigarettes and tosses aside the flask she finds in one of his jacket pockets. Poison. All poison. She can’t allow that. She hits him, over and over, even smashes his head against the gravestone. She has to protect the.... Protect the what? What was happening?_

Riley finally came out of the backroom, pulling Buffy from the awful not-memories. _What the hell_? That hadn’t happened. She couldn’t have done any of that. Why would she have hurt Spike like that? Why… why did she even _care_? It was just Spike. Some chipped vampire she’d fought a few times who now spent his time in a crypt getting beat up by Riley for information.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Riley said with a smile as he approached her.

Buffy knew, even before he leaned down towards her, that he was going to try to kiss her. Instead of happy fun time tingles, an icy ball of dread splashed down in the pit of her stomach at the thought. She didn’t want _anyone_ touching her after… whatever it was she’d just experienced. _Don’t make waves. You can’t make waves._ His mouth swooped down towards hers.

_She gazes into haunted blue eyes and kisses away the tears. He looks away, confused and uncertain. He laughs, the sound self-mocking with none of the sheer, childlike glee she knows he’s capable of._

_“Look at that, love, blubberin’ on like I’ve any right for tears. Wasn’t_ me _what got eaten by a monster.”_

_“Yes, it was,” she says quietly. “One time, it was.”_

_She gently cups his cheek and makes him look at her. Then she leans in and kisses him, soft and sweet._

Still caught up in the not-memory, Buffy kissed Riley back. The instant his hot lips touched hers, she knew. It was all wrong. The wrong shape, wrong texture, wrong rhythm. He wrapped an arm around her. Too warm, too big. She felt smothered. She shoved him away.

“Sorry, bathroom,” she said, giving what she hoped was a reassuring and apologetic smile before jumping to her feet and hurrying to the bathroom.

The not-memories swirled through her mind along with the strangely alien and unpleasant feel of Riley’s kiss. Pinpricks of hot and cold danced along her skin as she tried to swallow back the excess moisture in her mouth. _I’m going to be sick,_ she thought numbly. Then she dropped to her knees in front of the toilet and threw up.

 

**…**

 

Both the locator spell and the spell to check on Thursday’s wellbeing had been cast. She was in Spike’s crypt and healthy, though apparently a bit grumpy. Now, Tara was quickly filling a box with various items while Dawn watched.

“Chains? Why do we need chains?” Dawn asked, eyes wide as Tara put the restraints into the box for the spell to free Spike and Buffy.

Tara glanced at her, looking slightly embarrassed. “I… um… I’m probably going to have to retrigger the fertility ritual to burn through Willow’s spell. If Buffy isn’t restrained….”

It took Dawn a second to figure out what she meant, but then her eyes widened even further. “Oh, jeez! Yeah, definitely need restraints,” she said with a shudder.

She wasn’t exactly opposed to the idea of Buffy and Spike having another kid, but the last thing either one of them needed was another bout of magically induced rape. Yeah, they’d recover from it quicker since they were boinking and in a pretty tight relationship, but they wouldn’t know that until _after_ Tara did her spell. They’d still have all that “had sex again when we didn’t want to” ookiness to deal with.

“I _think_ this is everything I’ll need,” Tara said, putting a few more items into the box. Then she handed the box to Dawn. “It’ll be a couple of hours before I can sneak out. Keep Buffy at the crypt for as long as you can. Maybe hint that the baby won’t be safe at home.”

“Yeah, well, that’s kind of true with Yuckface practically living there,” Dawn said, wrinkling her nose in disgust as she turned to go up the stairs. It was better for her to be the one with the box. She could always claim she was experimenting with magic to make something nice for Willow. “Stay safe.”

“You, too.”

A horrible thought suddenly occurred to Dawn as she returned to the main part of the shop. She knew Riley had been having sex with the not-really-there Buffy placeholder. Had he had sex with the actual real Buffy? Oh ew. God, that was… ew. Poor Buffy.

If it _had_ happened…. _They’ll get through it,_ Dawn thought resolutely. Buffy and Spike had gotten through what the fertility ritual had done to them. If Willow had basically used Riley as a “sex up the Buffy” Ken doll, Spike would help Buffy deal with it. Dawn and Tara just had to get the two of them back to normal, and everything would be okay. They’d make everything right again.

 

**…**

 

The sprog was crying again. _Of_ course _she bloody well is,_ Spike thought with a sigh. He’d only just got her down again and had gone to the lower level for a smoke. And now she was crying again. She was _always_ crying when she wasn’t sleeping, either because she was hungry or had messed herself if not both. Eat, mess, cry, sleep. God, what a life. He wanted that life. Not being a sprog, mind. Just… to have someone worry about his well-being for once. No one but his mum had ever really cared, and she….

_Mustn’t think about that. Bad boy, very bad. Mustn’t think on that…. No one cares because you’re naught but a waste of space. A monster. Unlovable. Evil, evil, evil…_

_He’s tired, feels like the turkey part of one of them turducken things, and his back hurts, but the bathroom grout is mocking him with its persistent filth._

_“What are you doing?” she says from behind him, sounding annoyed. “Is… is that my_ toothbrush _?”_

_There’s a stab of guilt, but not much of one. She’s the one who bloody well did this to him. She could sacrifice her toothbrush to the cause._

_“Okay, that’s enough of that.” She grabs him and pulls him out of the bathroom. “You’re supposed to be resting.”_

_“But-” She can’t be serious. How is he supposed to rest when it’s so dirty everywhere?_

_“Nuh-uh, no buts, other than yours getting planted in front of the TV.” Her voice has gone from annoyed to soothing. It reminds him of how he’d talk to Dru when she was at her barmiest. “Come on, I’ll make us a snack. We can be whales together.”_

_… evil and wrong. Disgusting thing. He should beg Willow to end his pathetic existence. No, he shouldn’t bother someone as important as Willow. Bugger that, she was just the Slayer’s bleeding sidekick, she was, not some superpowered savior of Sunnydale. She…._

_Babies are crying. All of the babies. So many. Their blood is in his throat, and he’s choking, and he can’t scream…. He hands a baby to Dru. She steals another one from him. Cuts it right out. Blood on a tiny neck. Dru’s face covered in the stuff. So much blood. More than should be in one little sprog. He’s standing in a pile of them, all dead, but still crying…._

_… sick blood in his mouth, and he swallows it down, down, down. Takes his mum’s blood, drinks away her sickness and her life. But it’s okay, she’ll be okay. She has to be okay. She’s awake again, but she’s not Mum. Can’t be her. Wicked thing. Wretched thing, she is, to think… No, no, no. It’s all wro –_

_Pain, blessed, blessed pain. All he deserves, it is. Pain, pain, pain…. And the sprog was still crying…._

Spike blinked and stared blankly as the wall for a moment. There was blood on it. Why was there…? And why did his head hurt so bloody much? He reached up to touch the part of his head radiating pain. Something sticky…. He brought his hand down. His head hurt so bloody much because it was bloody well _bleeding_. He stared back at the wall, then at his hand. Oh. Well, that explained things, didn’t it?

Another angry shriek sounded from above. Spike took a deep breath and turned towards the hole leading up to the main part of the crypt. Right. He could go out of his sodding mind later. Sprog needed tending at the mo’.

He went up and behind the sarcophagus where he’d stashed the sprog to keep her hidden. She’d messed herself again, and was probably hungry. _Way she eats, might not be enough milk to last ‘til sundown,_ he thought as he picked her up.

He put her on the stone lid to be cleaned up and changed, keeping his thoughts focused on what he was doing. He couldn’t let himself think. He felt like he was being held together by bubblegum and half-rotted duct tape. If he let himself think, he’d fall apart, and he couldn’t do that right now.

_Evil. Bad. Wrong._ Use one of the spit up rags to wipe away the blood from his head wound, then unwrap the warm little body and set aside the strange, warmth-radiating amulet. _Like a packaged little meal, she is_ _. Not fully human. You can eat her right up, like the monstrous beast you are._ Peel open the sticky tabs and pull back the front of the soiled nappy. _Worthless thing, is all you are. All the death and misery. All the families left bereft._ None of that, now. Had to make his girl comfortable. Use the wipes, get her all cleaned up. Muscle memory knew what he was doing even if his mind didn’t, despite all of the day’s practice. Made it a bit hard to keep said mind occupied, though, didn’t it?

He managed to get her changed and wrapped back up without any sort of mental breakdown, which honestly felt like a minor miracle. Then he settled the still fussing infant back into her car seat while he got her bottle ready. _Come on now, mate, you can do this,_ he told himself as his thoughts started to wander. _Steady on. Focus._ Stir up the milk in the jar to get rid of any hot spots and pour.

_Can’t even bloody well do_ that _right,_ he thought with a curse as a little of it splashed onto his hand instead of going into the bottle. He licked up the spill. More watery than cow. Sweet. Milky flavor mixed in with a taste like how the Slayer smelled. Her essence distilled into liquid form.

_She moans and buries her hand in his hair, pushing him closer as his tongue curls around her hardening nub of flesh. He takes her in deeper, mouth and tongue expertly working her like a pinprick wound, drawing out her essence. It’s like squeezing out a sponge rather than the stream from a puncture. He drinks it down, the sweet twin to the elixir flowing through her veins. A precious gift._

Spike had actually swallowed a small mouthful of the sprog’s feed before he came back to his senses. _Selfish, greedy wanker,_ he thought in disgust, filling the bottle and putting the lid on the jar with more force than necessary. He put it back in the refrigerator and screwed the top back onto the bottle. Considering how sweet it was, he had pretty much just taken candy from a baby. Not even Angelus would stoop _that_ low.

He could still taste the milk, the flavor lingering on his tongue and reminding him that the sprog wasn’t the only one in need of some grub. He sighed and opened the refrigerator again, this time pulling out one of the jars of blood and getting it going in the microwave. While it heated, he scooped up his little girl and gave her the bottle.

Feeding a sprog didn’t exactly take a lot of brainpower. Bit like knitting, it was. Something that occupied the hands and left thoughts free to chase each other about. They started to creep in, all those thinky thoughts did. Morality and guilt. Did the guilt serve any real purpose beyond “do that again, and you’ll feel even more like utter crap”? Could he ever be forgiven for all that he’d done?

_“Am I to go to Hell, then, Mother?” he asks anxiously. Naughty little boys were sent to Hell – most likely after a right proper caning and no supper, he expected – and he’s been quite naughty._

_Mother chuckles and wipes away his tears. “Fret not, my sweet little William. God forgives all who ask with a sincere heart, even little boys who wander the house with muddy shoes.”_

Was she watching over him right now, up in Heaven? Had she seen all his horrible, evil deeds? Was she ashamed? He stared down at the baby in his arms. So sweet and innocent. How would he feel if she went all over evil? It… _hurt_ , thinking of that. Was that how his mum felt? A sort of hollow ball of pain in her chest? He deserved eternal damnation just for that…. Except he was fairly certain his mother wouldn’t want him damned. _Could_ his sins be forgiven?

God forgave all who asked with a sincere heart…. He hadn’t the right to ask, not for himself, and he knew it. But for Mother? For his girl, who was gazing back at him like he was her entire world? The fires of hell were easy. He didn’t have to do anything to get chucked there when he finally shuffled off good and proper.

The other, though…. That would take work. None of that “making amends” bollocks Angel was always on about. You couldn’t do that, cash in lives saved against lives taken as if it were some kind of currency. You just had to sincerely repent. So simple, and yet so hard. He just had to…

The microwave beeped, startling Spike enough that he nearly dropped the sprog. Bloody hell. Sodding piece of machinery. He snarled at it, fangs sliding down in response to his anger. And that, of course, was when the crypt door was kicked open and Buffy strode in.


	5. Chapter 5

At first, only three things registered for Buffy. Spike was holding a baby – _her_ baby, she was sure of it – he’d gone all bumpy, and there was blood on his face. She stood for a moment, frozen with fear. She needed to save her baby, but if she moved, that could make Spike hurt it. She frowned suddenly, wondering why she was so convinced of that. Other than dropping the baby, there was nothing Spike could actually do to –

_He’s standing next to the bassinet when she walks into the room, gazing down at the baby. He’s holding his arms across his chest, and she knows he’s fighting back the urge to pick her up again._

_“I can hurt her,” he says quietly, not looking up from the baby. “I tested the chip after your lot cut me loose, last year. It don’t work on half-demons. I can hurt her. Can eat her right up. She….” He stops talking with a shudder and swallows hard. “She smells good. Like a tasty little treat.” He finally looks at her. “You’ve any idea how many sprogs I’ve eaten? They aren’t my preference, but food is food, yeah? And kids were Dru’s favorite. We’d slaughter whole orphanages at times. Don’t feel guilty for a single one of ‘em. Just food. Young and sweet.”_

_Sometimes she forgets that he doesn’t have a soul, especially after he kind of did have one while carrying the baby. He’s evil, but actively trying to be good. For her. She imagines it has to be kind of like when she would try so desperately to be “normal.” It had been almost as exhausting as being the Slayer._

_Part of her wants to run away from the relationship. He actively admits to things like eating babies with no guilt, after all. But… he really_ is _trying to change. He can’t help being a vampire. He was a victim once, too. More than once, really, based on some of his nightmares._

_So instead of running, she walks across the room to him and gently grips his shoulder. “You won’t hurt her,” she says, knowing it’s true. “Not on purpose, anyway. You always try to take care of the people you love.”_

Buffy came back to herself as she took a step towards Spike, not to hit him and take back her baby, but to comfort him. She stumbled backwards in confusion. What was happening to her? What was with all of the wiggy not-memories? _No way are those for real,_ she told herself firmly. But… they felt real. And they agreed with her conviction that she had a baby. The problem was, they seemed to be saying that she’d had the baby with Spike… and that _she_ was the father. Kind of.

“What the bloody hell took you so long?” Spike asked, his tone somewhere between relieved and cranky.

The not-memory had thrown Buffy enough that she was actually able to take a moment to notice the things she’d missed before. The blood on Spike’s face was his own, a mostly dried smear from a partially healed head wound. And he wasn’t threatening the baby in any way. He was just… holding her.

_Like he’s done it a thousand times before,_ she realized. He was even giving her a bottle like it was something he was familiar with.

“Somethin’s wrong, Slayer,” Spike went on, his voice a little shaky. “I don’t remember our sprog, or whatever arrangements we have. And… and that bitch, Willow, she’s done somethin’ to me.”

Buffy’s jaw dropped. He’d just called Willow a bitch. Yeah, he was evil, but still… no one said things like that about Willow. Spike was clearly deranged, and he had her baby. She rushed at him, punching him in the nose and grabbing the baby.

“Ow! Hey!” His eyes got a strange, wild look to them. “Give her back, Dru. She’s mine! You can’t have her.”

Oh yeah, Spike had completely lost it. He was hallucinating that she was his skanky ho-bag ex. Or…

_…Drusilla is cuddled against a half-naked Spike. He’s been sliced open and is holding the baby against his chest, looking dazed and not-all-there…_

… Spike was having the same not-memories constantly popping up. Buffy was distracted enough by the thought that Spike was able to snatch the now wailing infant away from her.

“Hush now, love,” he murmured, huddling in the corner and giving the baby her bottle again.

He shot a glare at Buffy, then looked back down at the baby again. That look… that look was love. Pure love.

_Friday’s child is loving and giving._ It wasn’t a full-on not-memory, but she heard it in his voice, and she had a vague memory of him telling her he’d been born on a Friday.

Buffy slowly approached Spike. Something wasn’t right. The not-memories were disorienting, but they didn’t cause hallucinations. He’d even said himself that something was wrong. He thought Willow had done something to him and had called her a bitch.

“Spike,” she said quietly, kneeling beside him, “what is it you think Willow did?”

“She broke the rules, she did.” He frowned. “Thought your little sidekick was all about the rules.” He laughed, the sound almost a sob. “Not one to talk, though, am I? Broke all the rules, I did. Bad, wicked boy. All the blood… so much blood….” He shivered and smacked the back of his head against the wall.

“Hey, hey! Spike, no, don’t do that.” She grabbed his shoulders and shook him slightly. “Come on, focus.” She didn’t know what was wrong with him, but she needed to reach him somehow. Maybe then they could figure out what was going on with both of them. “Come on, Spike. Snap out it. You… you could hurt the baby if you don’t.”

He blinked and finally focused on her. “Slayer? Buffy, what…?” He looked down at the baby and carefully handed her over. “Been givin’ her the stuff in the jars, but I imagine she’d prefer it fresh from the tap, as it were.” He glanced at her chest, then away.

“Uh, right.” Her cheeks heated and she fought back the urge to punch him again. Stupid Spike. Stupid….

The baby made adorable little sounds, and it suddenly became hard for Buffy to focus on anything else. _I knew I had a baby_. She gently stroked her finger along one precious little cheek. So beautiful…. Snippets of memories flashed through her mind, all involving holding her child. It felt so right, having a baby in her arms.

Buffy glanced over at Spike as she shifted into a sitting position beside him. He was an annoying pest who she really should have staked ages ago, but it seemed like both of them had had their memories tampered with. They were in this together.

“Um… Dawn says the baby’s name is Thursday,” she said quietly.

Oh crap, Dawn. Once she had figured out where they were going, Buffy had dropped the box of supplies Tara had put together and had pelted towards the crypt at full Slayer speed, leaving her little sister behind, screaming at her not to hurt Spike. At least it was still daylight, so there wouldn’t be any vampires to worry about.

“Thursday, eh? Bit of a weird name, innit?”

Based on the not-memory – she really should call them something else, considering they’d been right about Thursday – she’d gotten when Dawn had told her the name, she was sure that Spike had been the one to choose it. Before she could say as much, Dawn burst through the still open door with the box, panting for breath.

“Buffy… don’t hurt… not… his….” She blinked at the sight of them sitting together on the floor. She put the box down and just breathed for a moment. “Oh, good.” Then her eyes narrowed when she noticed the blood on Spike’s face and the still not fully healed gash along his forehead. “Jeez, Buffy, what’d you do, bash his head against the wall?”

“Hey, don’t look at me like that, I didn’t do anything to him!” At Dawn’s incredulous look, she amended, “Okay, so, I punched him in the face, but that’s basically how we say hello. I punch him in the nose, and he bitches about it.”

Spike snorted at that and shook his head, but didn’t actually disagree. Buffy kind of thought his main issue was the fact that he couldn’t hit back, and not the punching in and of itself. _I regularly hit someone who can’t defend himself. Even when he’s actually being helpful._ Buffy shifted uneasily at that thought. It had never really bothered her before, but it did now, for some reason.

“So, what, he just got bored and decided to hit _himself_ in the head?” Dawn asked sarcastically.

It kind of rankled, but Buffy understand Dawn’s disbelief. Honestly, if it hadn’t been for the memory thing and Spike’s obvious relief at seeing her, Buffy would have attacked him. She might even have staked him. Which… kind of bothered her. Spike was a menace, but he was sort of _her_ menace.

"That… uh, that’s not far off the mark, actually,” Spike said. “Not the being bored part, but….” He shrugged. “Like I told big sis, somethin’s wrong. Had to’ve been Willow. Don’t know _why_ she did it, though. I mean, she’s _Willow_ , yeah? I’d’ve told her everything she wanted to know even if she didn’t send her bully boy in for a few rounds of kick the Spike all regular like.”

Buffy glanced at him with a puzzled frown. He was still accusing Willow of doing something, but he was talking about her normally now, instead of calling her a bitch or Buffy’s sidekick.

“What _exactly_ is it you think Willow’s done?” she asked.

Spike studied her with that little head tilt thing he did, which was stupid and not at all adorable. Buffy found herself staring down at the now sleeping baby and wondering if she would do that when she got older. _Oh my god, that would be_ so _cute…. No, Buffy, focus. Think of the cute later._

“So, she didn’t bring you in on it, did she?” he murmured thoughtfully. “I think Red went and stuffed a soul into me.”

Buffy’s entire world froze for a moment. A soul? Spike had a soul? _No, no, no._ Not another souled vampire. They wormed their way into your life, then turned evil again and left misery and destruction in their wake.

She wanted to get the hell out of there. To just take the baby and Dawn and run out into the sun where Spike couldn’t follow, to hell with whatever was messing with their memories. She needed to get away, to….

Spike had hurt himself at some point before she’d arrived, and again after taking the baby back from her. All of the terrible things he’d done were haunting him. Hurting him.

Self-preservation and compassion struggled inside of her until one of them finally won. She shifted the baby so she was holding her with only one arm. Then she slowly reached out and took Spike’s hand in her own.

 

**…**

 

Tara had finished stocking the shelves and was sitting with the others, working on adding embroidery to a shirt, when Willow emerged from her workroom. The woman that most of Sunnydale saw as a perfectly normal – or perfectly perfect, rather – young redhead immediately went to her girlfriend, stroking Tara’s hair with her left hand.

The lifetime of abuse and subjugation from her family actually worked in Tara’s favor. She was able to stay still and outwardly calm as the clawed monstrosity of a hand pawed at her head. Inwardly calm was another matter entirely. She felt sick, and she almost wished that working directly with Dawn’s key energy to seal away Glory hadn’t left a way for her to be freed from Willow’s spell. At least it had taken Dawn a week to figure it out. By then, the thing that Willow had become had lost interest in something as mundane as human sex. Tara didn’t think she would have been able to pretend with something that intimate.

“Hey, sweetie,” Willow said in that little girl voice Tara had once found so endearing. “The mayor’s asked me to come to some silly ribbon cutting ceremony. You want to come with?”

Tara glanced up at her, then shyly back down to her embroidery. She didn’t like looking directly at Willow for very long. The black hair and eyes seemed to suck in the light around them, making everything around her dimmer than it should be.

“I-I think I should s-stay here.” She fluttered a glance back and smiled sweetly, her expression carefully vacant. “I’m m-making something pretty for you.”

Willow chuckled and leaned down to kiss her on the forehead. “That’s my girl. So sweet and giving. You have fun, okay?”

Once Willow was gone, the air suddenly felt clearer and easier to breathe, the miasma of evil still there, but lessened. Tara let herself bask in in for a few moments, then gathered up her stuff. This was her best chance to get away without it seeming too suspicious.

“I need more thread,” she said, flashing her “I’m a helpless idiot” smile to everyone. “I can’t make Willow pretty things without the right thread.” She turned an anxious look to Giles. “I-I finished my work. Mr. Giles. Can, can I go get the thread?”

“Of course you can, my dear,” he said with an indulgent smile.

She nodded in happy thanks and skittered towards the door. Once she was out of the building and far enough away that they couldn’t see her, she stood straight and tall as she strode confidently towards Spike’s crypt. They’d get Buffy and Spike free of the spell. Then maybe they’d finally have what they needed to undo what Willow had done to herself.

 

**…**

 

Sunnydale was perfect, for the most part. There had been some demons – and even certain types of humans – who had proven immune to Willow’s spells, but they just added a little bit of spice, she supposed. Perfect order bred stagnation, and from stagnation came mosquitoes. Willow didn’t like mosquitoes. They were all bitey and nasty and made itchy spots.

Those people and demons her spells couldn’t reach were frogs in the pond. She hated frogs, too - all squishy and slimy and _froggy_ – but at least they didn’t bite. And they were easy enough to take care of. She just sent Riley after them.

She’d pumped Riley up with enough magic to take the place of what Walsh had done to make him a superman type. And it had the extra benefit of actually being good for his heart. Kind of like broccoli, but more magicy and less gassy.

Willow looked around Sunnydale as she headed towards the ribbon cutting event, pleased by what she saw. Everyone was happy, and everyone was following the rules. Mostly. She frowned slightly as a homeless man peered out at her from an alley. All of the mentally well homeless had places to stay under Willow’s rule. This had to be one of the crazies. She didn’t like the crazies. They saw too much.

The man’s gaze locked on her arm, and he started gibbering in panic. Stupid crazy man. The little voice in the back of Willow’s mind that was always caterwauling about doing the right thing and making everyone happy didn’t like the idea that popped into her head. _This_ is _the right thing_ , she told it as she slowly approached the man with a friendly smile. Crazy people went to heaven, didn’t they? She’d be doing him a favor.

The man tried to get away, but Willow was too fast. She pinned him against one of the buildings and shoved her claws into his chest, smiling in delight at the sounds he made. They sounded so good, his screams of pain. Like audial chocolate. Rich and smooth in their jagged sharpness. She giggled at the thought.

Then she drew on his life force, sucking it into herself, and everything became so much better. She tossed her head back, eyes fluttering as she moaned in pleasure. God, this was… it was…. She gasped and leaned into him, pressing him harder against the wall as she nuzzled his neck. It was so good, all bright and sparkly. Like a fizzy drink right to the soul. She shuddered, then stumbled slightly against the wall as the body crumbled to dust.

“Wow, what a rush,” she said with a breathy laugh.

She took a few minutes to just enjoy the lingering sensations, then continued on her way, whistling a jaunty tune. She barely noticed as the last vestiges of her humanity curled up within her and cried.


	6. Chapter 6

She’d had a baby with Spike. Buffy was still trying to wrap her head around that fact. They’d had a baby together, and if her memory flashes could be believed, _she’d_ been the one to impregnate _him._ That was just…. Buffy shook her head. She wanted to declare it impossible, but they lived on a Hellmouth. Vampires and demons everywhere, killer robots, ghosts, students who became fish monsters, and Mayors who became giant snakes. Sunnydale scoffed at the word “impossible.”

The impossible baby was on her back on a really gorgeous rug at the moment, her little arms and legs waving in the air while her parents sat on the crypt floor. There was apparently a lower level that Spike had been intending to remodel into a bedroom. The rug had been part of the stash of things he’d squirreled away for the project, along with a lot of other really nice things. He had surprisingly good taste.

_Maybe I should ask him to help me decorate my room,_ she thought absently as she glanced at the vampire in question. He was sitting beside her, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. Part of her wanted to sneak away while he was sleeping, but she had nowhere else to go, really. Dawn had insisted that home wasn’t safe for the baby right now, and her own instincts were screaming at her that she absolutely could _not_ take Thursday anywhere where Willow would see her.

Spike whimpered and twitched beside her, and she automatically reached out to gently pet his hair in a soothing gesture. If she was honest with herself, that was another reason to stay put. Spike had managed to keep himself together – for the most part, anyway – when he’d had Thursday’s care to focus on. Buffy didn’t think he’d be able to if he was here by himself.

He’d killed and maimed for over a hundred years, and now he finally had to deal with it. It was what he deserved, to be raked over the coals of guilt. He was a monster. A vampire. A… an innocent man who’d been murdered and eaten because there hadn’t been a slayer there to save him. His soul had gone wherever vampire souls went, only to get dragged back and shoved into a body that had been murdering and eating other innocent people.

And despite what he thought, Buffy had the strange certainty that Willow hadn’t been responsible. She wasn’t going to bring it up – yet, anyway – but she was absolutely sure that he’d done it to himself. A soulless demon had _chosen_ to get one. That was…. _Angel hadn’t been able to do that,_ she thought, tears prickling at the back of her eyes.

_And this is so not the time to be thinking about Angel,_ she told herself, forcing her thoughts away from her ex. That wasn’t going to help figure out why no one other than Dawn seemed to fully remember the baby. Buffy focused on her sister, who was pacing anxiously and kept glancing towards the door.

“What are we waiting for this time?” she asked quietly.

Dawn glanced at her and bit her lip, obviously trying to figure out what to say. “It- it’s gonna be okay, okay?” she finally said. “We’re just waiting for someone who can help, and then it’s all going to be alright. You’ll be….” She flashed a wobbly smile. “Just trust me, okay?”

_Just trust me…._ Dawn could be an annoying brat at times, but she was Buffy’s sister. She could do this. She could trust her sister. She just wished it didn’t involve waiting. She wasn’t any good at it. She wanted to hit something. She wanted to fight. She wanted… to run to Willow and ask her to make everything better.

Buffy frowned uneasily. Why _hadn’t_ Willow made things better? She had to know something all magicky was going on. Why hadn’t she stopped or reversed it or something? Maybe… maybe she was already working on the issue, but just hadn’t said anything about it yet? It wasn’t like Willow answered to her or anything. What if whatever Dawn had planned interfered with Willow’s plan? What if –

Spike shifted beside her, his head suddenly resting on her shoulder. He was mumbling something in his sleep. “…sorry. Didn’t… ‘m sorry, love.” There was something about his voice.... Buffy tilted her head so she could see his face. He was crying.

“Spike,” she whispered. “Hey, wake up. It’s just a dream.”

His eyes slowly opened, vivid blue framed by lashes a lot of women would kill for. Pretty vampire. _Mine_ , something deep inside of her whispered fiercely. _No,_ she told it, the denial nowhere near as powerful as the declaration of ownership. Spike wasn’t hers. She was with Riley. She lo… _cared_ about Riley. Except… she hadn’t wanted Riley to touch her. Had hated the feel of his kiss.

Spike started to pull away from her with a murmured apology, but Buffy wrapped her arms around him and held him close. It felt right and familiar, a room temperature body not really all that much bigger than her own. They fit together, like he was a glove made specifically for her hand.

“Buffy, what…?”

He looked so confused and tired. She wanted to kiss him. She remembered kissing him, and it had felt good in those memories. Would it be the same if she did it now? She leaned in, her lips just barely brushing against his when someone knocked at the crypt door.

 

**…**

 

“…temporarily reset the spell that resulted in Thursday, which should overpower and break the spell you two are under right now.”

Dawn was standing next to the microwave, heating up a mug of blood for Spike while Tara explained what they needed to do. The vampire and her sister had totally been about to smooch when Tara had shown up. _Probably for the best,_ she decided reluctantly. She didn’t think they were really ready to be all kissyface again just yet. They had a few memories back, but nowhere near all of them.

“Shouldn’t Willow be the one doing this?” Buffy asked dubiously as she paced. “Does… does she even know about our memories being blocked?”

“Willow knows about it,” Tara answered, trying to give a reassuring smile. “Sh-she j-just….” She faltered, voice thickening with unshed tears.

“She has all of Sunnydale to take care of, you know,” Dawn pointed out as the microwave dinged. She pulled the mug out and walked towards where Spike was still sitting next to the rug, Thursday cuddled against his chest. “Someone getting rid of memories about a baby is small potatoes for Willow.”

“Thanks, Bit,” Spike said quietly when Dawn handed him the mug before sitting down next to him. He looked tired and kind of dazed, and she wasn’t entirely sure he’d actually been paying attention.

Buffy sighed heavily and ran a hand through her hair. “Okay, so, Willow’s busy doing more important things. But… well….” She frowned and shot Tara an apologetic look. “Sorry, but you aren’t really known for being all that competent.” She frowned suddenly. “Why is that? You seem pretty competent right now.”

Dawn winced in sympathy at Tara’s pained smile. “It’s all part of the spell,” the sweet-natured witch explained. “It tried to block all memory of the baby and made you think I wouldn’t be able to help you.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie, but not really the truth, either. Not the full truth, anyway. Hopefully neither Buffy or Spike would question it.

“That….” Buffy trailed off, an odd look on her face for a second, as if she was remembering something. Maybe Tara doing the spell to seal away Glory? “Huh.” She nodded slowly. “Okay. What do we – Hey, what are you _doing?_ ”

Buffy’s sudden shout while glaring in her general direction startled Dawn, but she wasn’t the focus. Spike was. He’d been sharing the blood with Thursday. That was normal, but if Buffy didn’t remember that…. _Seeing a half-crazy vampire giving your baby blood? Yeah, majorly freaksome._

“I don’t know. It just….” Spike started to say just as Dawn tried to reassure Buffy that he wasn’t doing anything wrong.

The slayer had already taken several steps towards them when she stopped, that odd look on her face again. “She needs blood,” Buffy said slowly. “She’s half vampire, and she needs….” Her eyes widened, fixed on Spike. “That’s why….”

Dawn glanced back at Spike. His eyes were wide too, but even more so, like some kind of frightened animal. She hesitantly reached out to pat his shoulder, but he flinched away from the contact. She didn’t take it personally. He’d gotten like that sometimes when he’d been sharing Thursday’s soul, and his own seemed to be affecting him even more, especially since he didn’t remember getting it. Or hadn’t remembered, anyway.

“Oh god,” he breathed, sounding stunned. “Willow didn’t do it. I….” He looked at Tara, eyes bright and expression determined. “Whatever it takes, love, I’m in. Just get us our memories back. All of ‘em.”

“Me, too,” Buffy said, all trace of reluctance gone. “Do whatever you need to do, Tara. Then we’re going to figure out who did this and kick their butts.”

 

**…**

 

He’d done it to himself. It wasn’t some curse someone had put on him against his will. It wasn’t any kind of curse at all. He didn’t remember any of the particulars, but Spike knew he had fought for the thing, had nearly died several times trying to get it. _Demon trials,_ he thought, pacing near his microwave. _Had to’ve been._

The weight of guilt was still just as heavy as it had been, but it was somehow easier to bear, knowing he hadn’t been someone’s victim. Not that he didn’t deserve it, mind, but…. If he were honest – and he generally tried to be, to himself at least – he’d been a victim for most of his life, both before and after dying. Every time he tried to pull himself out of it, to be his own man, something had happened, dragging him right back into victimhood.

His thoughts drifted back in time to the circle of “friends” who had kept him about for a laugh. Hardly the first to use and abuse him, but they’d been the first he’d been able to get back at. He’d alternated between reading them his poetry and slowly – oh so slowly – driving railroad spikes into their heads, asking them which they honestly preferred. The first few had died fairly quickly, but he’d saved the worst of the lot for last. By then, he’d known how to draw it out. He’d actually left that one alive, naught but a drooling half-wit who could still vaguely remember what he’d been. The release of death had been too good for him.

The guilt over that lot was made all the worse by the vindictive pleasure he still felt, even with the soul. _God, I’m a monster_ , he thought, hugging himself. He wanted to cuddle Thursday, to breathe in her scent and let it soothe all of the jagged edges, but she was already in the lower level with Dawn. The teenager was the only one who’d be available to look after the sprog for a bit, and it was best Dawn was out of the way if things went wrong.

Especially since things going wrong apparently meant he’d end up getting shagged senseless and up the duff with another sprog. He didn’t remember much about the first go ‘round, but he apparently hadn’t been too keen on the whole unexpected Slayer shagging. She hadn’t been able to stop herself. She’d….

He wrenched his thoughts away from that as the memories tried to surface and focused on what was going on across the crypt. He and the Slayer had attached restraints to the walls together, in the hopes that their combined strength would be enough to keep her bound. He was already in position as far from her as he could get while Tara chained Buffy up.

Not too much longer now. Everything the witch needed was already waiting in the spell circles she’d set up. Once Buffy was properly contained, Tara could get started. Except, once she was done, Tara didn’t go to her circles. She walked over to him, looking nervous.

“I… um… I need to ask you something,” she said, ducking her head and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Go ahead, pet. I don’t bite,” he said. He flashed her a self-mocking smile. “Not anymore, anyway.”

Bloody government sods, taking that away from him. No. No, it was _good_ they’d done that. They’d made him safe. Kept him from hurting anyone. From killing.

“There’s a… person I know,” Tara said, breaking into his thoughts. “She, she’s in trouble. W-when I t-tap into your energy t-to reset the spell....” She was talking too fast, tripping over her words as she wrung her hands hard enough to make Spike wince. She paused and smiled sweetly at him when he took her hands in his and separated them before she did any harm to herself. “If I could collect some of…. You have a lot of humanity in you, for a vampire. There’s a lot of power in that. It wouldn’t actually take any of that away from you, just use the fact that you have it to power something. With that, I might be able to –”

“Take what you need,” he cut her off.

“But….” She frowned, clearly relieved she wouldn’t have to explain but also not happy about not explaining. She was a good sort, Tara was.

“’S alright, love, I trust you. Go on and start things up. Sooner you do, the sooner we can get our memories back and the sooner you can help your mate.”

She nodded, both in thanks and agreement, and went to her power circles. Roughly a minute after Tara had begun her chanting, Spike felt a strange draining sensation, soon followed by a disorienting wave of… _something_ that made him stagger a bit. Across the crypt, Buffy seemed to go mad, staring at him like a crazed thing as she desperately tried to get free.

_She’s gonna end up gnawing her own sodding arms off,_ he thought in dismay. Okay, she might not go quite that far, but she was definitely going to end up hurting herself with the way she was fighting the chains. He took a step towards her, then froze, suddenly overwhelmed as his memories flooded back.

He remembered sharing Thursday’s soul, and all of the coping mechanisms he’d worked out. He remembered long talks with Ben – oh god, _Ben_! Where was he? Was he alright? – about all of the terrible things he’d done and the possibility of forgiveness. Most of all, he remembered Buffy.

Patrolling together, bantering, the quiet moments spent just getting to know each other, making love as they got to know each other’s bodies as well…. Someone had blocked all of that from him. Worse, they’d tried to get rid of Thursday. Someone had tried to erase his daughter from existence.

_Willow_ , he thought darkly. That was the only explanation, considering how reality had been twisted in Sunnydale. _That bloody bitch! I’ll_ –

He didn’t get a chance to decide what he’d do, because at that moment, Buffy broke free and rushed towards him.


	7. Chapter 7

_Mine!_ The word reverberated through Buffy, more felt than thought as desire sizzled through every cell of her being. She couldn’t think, only feel. Only _be_. Need thrummed through her, pushing and pulsing, driving her towards the one who belonged to her. She _wanted_. She would take, and she would have.

Sudden pain flared through her shoulders as she tried to get to him. The pain wasn’t important. It was meaningless. What mattered was that something was stopping her. Chains. She was chained. She growled and strained against them, furious that she couldn’t get to Spike. As she struggled and pulled against the restraints, she was vaguely aware of memories blossoming like a sun touched garden in her mind.

This had happened before. She’d felt like this before, and she’d forced herself on Spike. She couldn’t do that to him again. She had to stop herself. She… she had to get to him. To touch him and feel him inside, proving he was _hers_ as she satisfied the terrible _need_ threatening to consume her.

_It wouldn’t be like last time. We both agreed to this, knowing what could happen,_ she thought fuzzily as she twisted around, hauling herself up just enough to press her feet against the wall. She pushed, using every ounce of strength in her powerful legs in an attempt to free herself. God, it felt good, pushing herself to the limit, not holding back.

She wouldn’t hold back when she got to Spike. She’d pin him down beneath her and rake her nails along his skin the way she knew he liked. Hell, she’d slice up her _own_ flesh, feed him her blood as she had her way with him. Part of her would be inside of him while he was in her. She just needed to get….

She fell to the ground as the metal spike holding the restraints to the wall suddenly snapped. She was free. She was up in an instant and darting towards Spike.

_No!_ a horrified little voice called out in the back of her mind. Spike had nearly _died_ last time. She knew how to take care of him now, knew how to get him through that first week that was so dangerous for vampires, but she wouldn’t be able to do all that with what was happening in Sunnydale.

She could hear Tara chanting, which meant there was nothing the witch could do to stop her. If the chanting stopped, the ritual would go back to the state it had been in before. If that happened before the other spell they were under was completely broken, they’d have to start all over again.

“Buffy –” Spike’s voice, her name a soft caress.

She grabbed him and slammed him against the wall, shutting him up with a searing kiss. _Oh god, I have to stop,_ she thought as he tensed and started to struggle. Instead, she slid her hands under his shirt, stroking him, taking advantage of the fact that the ritual made him sensitive to her touch. He shuddered and leaned into her.

He was doing what he was supposed to do, submitting to her. God, he felt so good, cool skin like silk over toned, lean muscle. A work of art meant to be enjoyed with all the senses, and he was _hers_.

“’S okay, Slayer,” he whispered. His eyes were dark with desire, his voice thick with it. Her fingers skimmed along a particularly sensitive spot and he moaned, arching against her. “Won’t… try to fight you… this time,” he panted. “Not your fault.”

No. No, she wasn’t going to do this again. Do what…? What was she doing? Her hands were at his belt, unbuckling it before moving on to his zipper. Too many clothes. She had to get rid of the clothes. No. Bad Buffy, the clothes had to stay. She had to stop this.

There had to be something she could do. Something…. She pushed his jeans down, the sounds he made as her hands caressed his hips and thighs making her ache. She needed him inside of her. Needed him _now_.

She remembered something he’d told her once about dominance and submission. While he preferred to submit to the women in his life, he was actually good at both, because when done right, both were about giving. _Friday’s child is loving and giving_ , the poem whispered through her mind. It really did fit him perfectly.

When you submitted, you gave yourself to your partner. When you dominated, you gave your partner what they needed. Spike had learned to do both at the same time and to….

“Switch,” she whispered hoarsely as she pressed herself against him. They’d done that before. She remembered it now.

His eyes widened slightly, then narrowed. And then his hands were all over her, and his mouth was on hers, and she willingly surrendered herself to him. By the time the chanting stopped and Tara went down to the lower level, Buffy was too far gone into pleasure to even really notice.

 

**…**

 

It took several minutes of just basking in afterglow before Buffy could manage anything even vaguely resembling coherent thought. Even then, she was more grunty, possessive cave-Buffy than anything else. Cave-Buffy had pretty, snuggly man who knew how to please woman. Cave-Buffy was happy.

Spike nuzzled her hair before lightly nibbling on her ear, and she cuddled in closer to him with a sigh of contentment. She wanted to just stay like that forever, but the crypt floor wasn’t the most comfortable place, and reality began to intrude. One – or possibly even both – of them might be pregnant, and – oh god! – Willow had imposed her will over Sunnydale. Buffy reluctantly sat up.

“Feelin’ any urges to bash me upside the head if I so much as think of lightin’ up a smoke?” Spike asked, following suit.

“Ah, no, not really,” she mumbled with a wince. The brutal beat down after what the ritual had made her do wasn’t something she liked to think about. She didn’t like to think about any of it.

“Here now, none of that, love,” he said gently, brushing a stray tear from her cheek. “Wasn’t your fault, an’ I shouldn’t have teased about it.”

“I hit you today.” She’d been really good about that lately, only hitting him when he wanted her to.

“What, that little bop to the nose?” He snorted derisively, the corner of his mouth twitching up into a smirk. “Just how we say hello, innit?” He pulled her close and nuzzled her hair again. “You punch me, and I bitch about it, yeah?”

She wrapped her arms around him and leaned in close. “I like this way better.”

“Me too,” he murmured into her hair.

“What about you?” Buffy asked nervously after a moment. She probably hadn’t gotten him pregnant, but what about her? The ritual had been reset with him in the role as the submissive partner, but she’d been the one to play it. Did that mean _she_ was pregnant?

“Hmm?”

“Any punchy urges about me doing something that could harm a baby?” she clarified.

“Oh….” He was quiet for a moment. “No. Seems we confused the ritual right proper. Prob’ly in the clear, though it wouldn’t hurt to ask Tara about it.” He held her tighter and took a deep breath, probably for her scent. “S’pose it’s for the best, really.”

There was an odd tone to his voice, and Buffy pulled away so she could see his face. Wistful regret. Had he _wanted_ another baby? Had she? She thought about that for a minute. Now really wasn’t the best time, but….

“We could always do the ritual ourselves some day and have a baby on purpose,” she pointed out. “If… if you wanted another one.” _Five chubby little daughters. He told me once he wanted five little girls when he was human._

“Do _you_ want another?” he asked, not quite looking at her, as if trying not to influence her decision.

“I think so,” she said slowly, mentally testing out the idea. Not five, that was way too many. But one or two more? She could handle that. Two or three total kids who would go on to have families of their own. Families that could keep Spike from getting too lonely after she died, whenever that was. Slayers weren’t exactly known for their plentiful lifespans. “It’d have to be soon, I think.”

He looked at her, head tilted slightly as he reached out to cup her cheek. She hadn’t said anything, but he seemed to know. “Gonna live a good long time, Slayer-mine. You’ve love and support your sister-Slayers never got much of. Family and friends and a life beyond just fighting monsters. Even without all that, you’re a hell of a woman,” he said with a sincerity that touched her heart. He wasn’t just saying things to make her feel better. He believed it. “You’re right, though, needs to be soon. Any sprogs we have this way, they’ll be half slayer, yeah? The closer they are in age, the better they’ll be able to watch each other’s backs.”

Two – or possibly three – young slayers fighting side-by-side. She remembered the very brief experience of fighting with Kendra, and the somewhat longer one with Faith. The second slayer’s betrayal still stung, even after all this time. She’d had someone at her side who’d completely understood a part of her that no one else could; not even Spike, though he came very close. She wanted that for Thursday.

“I think I could handle it,” Spike said abruptly, “if you wanted to name the next sprog after your cousin. But… uh, there’s this play, by Shakespeare, you know? Called ‘As you Like It.’ Girl in it name of Celia who called herself Aliena while she was in exile. It, uh, means sunray.”

“I like it,” she said with a smile. It was a pretty name, and it would work nicely as a tribute to her cousin without being an upsetting reminder of Cecily for Spike.

“Could even be you carrying the next sprog.” He flashed her his sexiest smirk. “Get you in the right frame of mind beforehand, then give it a go with you feeling all submissive on me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I see what this is,” she said in mock anger. “You don’t want more kids, you just want a chance to keep the ‘little woman’ barefoot and pregnant.”

He snorted, eyes gleaming with amusement. “Projecting, are we, Slayer? It’s you has the fetish about _me_ being bare- _legged_ and preggers.”

“Mmm…. Manskirt.” Her eyes glazed a bit as she thought back to when he’d been pregnant with Thursday. A sexy kilt and an equally sexy baby bump. He’d worn the kilt for her several times after, but she had to admit the thought of him carrying their child was a major turn on. The thought of her doing it was probably just as much as a turn on for him. “Okay. When it’s a better time, I’ll do it.”

“I’ll take good care of you,” he promised, all trace of joking gone as he entwined the fingers of one hand with hers. “I’ll….” His eyes widened slightly in dismay. “Bollocks,” he muttered. “Has to be me, pet. Don’t actually mind, honestly, but would have been nice to be the one carin’ for you.”

“Huh?” Buffy frowned in confusion, not understanding the sudden turn around. She liked the idea of him being pregnant more than her, but she was willing to do it.

“Human blood.”

Oh. Right. She was pretty sure she had all of her memories back – though she wouldn’t really know that, would she? – but that had somehow slipped her mind. Spike had needed both human food and human blood while he carried Thursday. Buffy would need the same if she was the one pregnant with Aliena. She wrinkled her nose in disgust at the thought. Ew. Yeah, no human blood for her.

“I like the idea of you having kid number two,” she said quietly. “That means I’ll have a chance to treat you right from the very beginning. No being beaten, and no being chained up in my room.” She thought about that for a moment. “Well, no being chained up as a way to keep you prisoner, anyway.”

“That so, Slayer?” he murmured huskily, eyes dark with rekindled desire.

She wanted to pin him down and make hot, wild love to him. She knew they shouldn’t. They had to deal with… with Willow. It wasn’t mindless worship that made her reluctant – that was _gone_ thankfully – but the fact that, despite things getting kind of rocky lately, Willow was her friend. Or had been. Surely things wouldn’t implode if she hid from the reality of it all just long enough for a quickie, right?

“Hey!” Dawn called up from the lower level. “Are you two done ‘playing checkers’ up there?”

“Are you sure we should give Thursday a sister? Being an only child suddenly seems like it’d be wonderful.” Buffy muttered darkly.

Spike chuckled and kissed her before standing and helping her up to her feet. “Come on, Slayer, work to be done.” He raised his voice to be heard by Dawn. “Hang tight, Nibblet! You can come up when I give the go ahead.”

They’d just gotten themselves presentable when the crypt door was slammed open for the second time that day. The second-to-last person Buffy wanted to see strutted inside as if he owned the place.

“Buffy, what are you doing here?” Riley asked with a frown.

Before she could launch herself at Riley and tell him to get the hell out, Spike stepped in front of her with an arrogant swagger. “What, don’t like your girl hornin’ in your territory, mate? ‘Fraid she’s better at your game of Kick the Spike? You got the stones to show her what you can do?”

_No. Oh god, no._ Spike glanced over his shoulder at her, his expression confirming what needed to happen. They couldn’t let Willow know they’d been freed from her spell, so they couldn’t act out of “character”.

From the time of her calling, Buffy had had to do hard things and make sacrifices for the good of others. She’d given up her childhood, faced death at the hands of the Master, and driven a sword through her boyfriend before sending him to hell. Now she was being expected to just stand and watch as her ex pummeled the man she loved.

Buffy tensed with each blow and kick, wanting to jump in and stop things. She needed to get Riley out of there before Spike was too badly hurt or someone downstairs made some kind of noise loud enough to be heard. There was no reason for Tara or Dawn to be down there, and Thursday…. She hadn’t remembered Thursday – had had only the intense feeling that she existed – and Spike hadn’t remembered her either.

Willow wanted to be the center of attention, the one everyone loved and fawned over. They’d started drifting apart because of Thursday. The issues with the redheaded witch helping her do something horrible instead of stopping her had been part of it, but that wasn’t all. Buffy hadn’t had as much time for _any_ of her friends because the center of her attention was her daughter. Willow had suppressed their memories of the baby’s existence because she wasn’t supposed to exist anymore.

If Riley saw Thursday and reported it to Willow…. _I can’t let that happen,_ Buffy thought grimly. No matter what, she could _not_ let that happen. Even if it meant standing by and watching while Spike was ruthlessly beaten.


	8. Chapter 8

Bourbon and horse blood, good for what ailed you. Well, as long as you were a vampire, anyway. Good stuff, horse blood. Nothing like human, mind, but fairly tasty and it helped with healing quite a bit more than pig blood. The alcohol helped keep the pain in check, and if Spike drank enough of it, it might even wash away the memory of Buffy wriggling against Finn like a worm on a hook and snogging the great lummox before leading him off out into the cemetery.

_God, but I’m a pathetic wanker, aren’t I?_ Spike thought, utterly disgusted by his own insecurities. He shuffled unsteadily towards his chair, mix of blood and booze firmly in hand, and dropped down with a grunt of pain. Steel-toed boots and ribs were, as Buffy would say, “unmixy.”

_Can’t say as the head and back were too chuffed over the introduction, either. Plonker’s been eatin’ his Wheaties, seems like._ Or, more likely, soldier boy had gotten a power boost from the Wicked Witch of the Westcoast. Either way, he’d more strength than he ought, and Spike was bloody lucky Buffy had distracted and lured him away.

He _knew_ that. He did. It was just…. He sighed and took a long drink. No one but his own mum had ever really cared about him as a human. He was just an awkward, bookish little man always setting a foot wrong while wandering about with his head in the clouds. Then had come Dru, who had thrown him away. A thing like that didn’t exactly do a lot for a bloke’s self-confidence.

He took another swig and glanced towards the hidden entrance to the lower level. Dawn, Tara, and Thursday were still down there. God, he wanted Thursday. Wanted to just hold her and breathe her in, let her scent temporarily wash everything away. Best to leave them down there, though, until Buffy came back and gave the all clear.

That had to be the plan, right? Buffy would send her ex-honey on his way, and then come back. She _would_ come back. She would. She had to.

Spike told himself that as he hauled himself to his feet and dug back into his stash of liquor.

 

**…**

 

_Was he always this touchy-feely, or is it Willow’s influence?_ Buffy wondered as Riley pulled her close and leaned down for another kiss now that they were out of the crypt.

She rose up on her toes to meet him, their lips meeting in a kiss. Once, she would have enjoyed this. Now though? Majorly vile. He was too hot, too sweaty, and the smell was all wrong. His tongue slid past her lips, an unwelcome invasion she had to endure. Like his body, it was too hot and too thick. It squirmed in her mouth, clumsy and unpleasant compared to the skill Spike had acquired through a century of practice.

She forced herself to act like she was into it, pressing herself against him and gliding her own tongue along his. The fact that she didn’t love him – or even want to love him – really brought to mind just how _weird_ kissing was. She was tasting his tongue. That was… that was just kind of gross.

Finally, he let go and smiled down at her. “I’m heading to Willy’s to find out if he’s heard any negative talk about Willow. Want to come?”

“Nah,” Buffy said, keeping her voice carefully casual and hiding the fact that she really wanted to spit out the Riley taste. “I need to practice jumping over the gravestones while the light’s still good enough to see what I need to work on.”

It was a really stupid, utterly lame excuse, but Riley gave her an indulgent little grin, all but patting her on the head. Ugh. “You _do_ need to practice, if you want to be anywhere near Willow’s level.” He gave her a – thank god – brief kiss, before heading off on his way.

She waited a few minutes to be sure he was gone before turning back and going into the crypt. A quick glance around showed that Spike was up off the floor, which was much of the good. The fact that he was slumped in his chair, steadily downing a bottle of booze? Not so much. At least the mug sitting on the floor next to him meant he’d had some blood.

“Hey honey, I’m home,” she said quietly.

He jerked in surprise, nearly dropping his booze as he stared at her. God, the look in his eyes, like he couldn’t quite believe she was there. _He wasn’t sure I was coming back,_ she realized with a sick, heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach. He hadn’t believed in her. She’d had to be all kissyface with the pregnant-person-stabbing asshole who had cheated on her with suckhouse whores, and the stupid vampire hadn’t believed in her.

She wanted to hit him. She wanted to turn around and run, leaving it all behind her. Preferably after hitting him. She… wanted to reassure him that she loved him, and always would. _It isn’t me he didn’t believe in. It’s himself._ She could see it in his eyes, that weird sort of hopeless hope that had hung around him like a shroud ever since he’d gotten his soul back. He wanted to be loved and forgiven for all he’d done, but didn’t think he deserved it.

She still wanted to smack him, but he’d endured enough violence for one day. He looked like a shell shocked raccoon and was bleeding from a couple of places where the force of Riley’s kicks had split the skin.

Violence wasn’t going to fix the problem, but she thought she knew what would. Ignoring it. Sort of.

“I am majorly in need a shower and, like, a gallon of mouthwash,” she said, wrinkling her nose as she shuddered in disgust. “Oh, I know!” She forced a perky smile as she walked towards him. “This’ll work even better than mouthwash.”

She sat in his lap – careful not to aggravate any of his injuries – and kissed him. Cool and sensual, the feel of him against her setting her ablaze while the hot-blooded human had just left her cold. His hands drifted up under her shirt to caress her back as he slowly explored her mouth, erasing the sensory memory of Riley’s touch. God, he smelled good, and tasted even better. A sort of smoky earthiness with a hint of copper and an overtone of whiskey.

She reluctantly pulled away when the need to breathe became too much to ignore. “Mmm.” She gave him a lazy, satisfied little smile before slowly licking her lips. “Lips of Spike. Definitely better than mouthwash.”

“Buffy….” The way he said her name, the look in his eyes. So vulnerable and uncertain. Then he tucked it all away – the insecurities along with the guilt and even grief over the people he’d killed – and graced her with a smirk. “Wouldn’t say no to a cookie, but think I’d need another kiss to get the Buffy taste back in my mouth.” The smirk took on a suggestive cast. “’Course, I could always sample some of your other… flavors,” he practically purred.

_Guh._ Was it possible to orgasm just from the sound of someone’s voice? Buffy felt pretty damn close to it. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any time to experiment. They needed to get Tara and Dawn back up to explain exactly what was going on while she tended to Spike’s injuries. Then they needed to figure out a safe place for Spike and Thursday. After that….

_After that, we decide what to do about Willow,_ she thought with grim determination.

 

**…**

 

Spike couldn’t help a slight wince as Buffy dabbed at the cut near his eye with one of Thursday’s wet wipes. _Some big bad you are, mate,_ he thought with a mental snort of disgust. _Take a beat down without a peep and then flinch over a sodding wet wipe._ Even as he thought that, he knew it had nothing to do with the physical discomfort.

He had a lapful of sweet, warm Slayer, tending to his wounds, and he knew he bloody well didn’t deserve it. He wasn’t good enough for her, but the daft chit loved him anyway. She hadn’t said the words – she rarely did – but her actions had spoken loud and clear. She loved him. She shouldn’t. She should kick him to the curb and find someone more worthy. Wasn’t going to tell her that, though, because he was a selfish sod and wanted to be hers for as long as he could.

“I’m sorry,” Buffy murmured, her voice low to keep from being overheard by Dawn and Tara.

They had come up from the lower level with Thursday held securely in Tara’s arms. Spike really wanted to hold his little girl, but had to admit it probably wasn’t the best idea right now, considering he was hurt and possibly a little drunk.

“Not your fault, love,” he said quietly. “Not even really Finn’s fault either, honestly.”

“What?” Buffy stared at him incredulously, her voice loud enough to shatter any pretense of privacy.

“Not his fault,” he repeated. “Bloody wanker needs his arse handed to him over how he’s treated you and that whole plastic stake stunt, but this?” Spike shook his head. “Not his fault.”

“It’s Willow’s,” Tara said quietly, not looking at any of them. She kept her gaze fixed on the sleeping sprog in her arms, as if the tiny infant could make everything somehow better. Spike knew exactly how she felt. “She, uh, she s-sort of blamed Spike for her arm. And, and for the two of you becoming distant,” she said with an apologetic look at Buffy. “It-it’s not even fully Willow’s fault. She did.... Something, something happened. She’s still Willow, but th-there’s something else, something that’s made her less than who she was.”

“She’s the friend you needed somethin’ from me to help,” he realized.

He was about to ask why the bloody hell she hadn’t just said as much, but the answer came to him before he even opened his mouth. Tara wasn’t the sort to do something without consent if it could be helped.

“Yeah,” Tara said with a jerky nod in response, looking utterly miserable. “Wi-with the spell and all, you would have agreed no matter wha-”

He lifted a hand to stop her, and waved it off. “S’alright, pet, I understand. Can’t say I’ve been a fan of a lot of her choices lately, but she’s not exactly a malicious sort naturally. Somethin’s gone wrong with her.”

There was a long moment of uncomfortable silence broken by the ding of the microwave, and Dawn approaching him with a mug. “This is the last of the blood,” she said. “I could go to the butcher shop, but it’d be pig.” Her face brightened suddenly. “Oooh, maybe I could see if they have beef or something. Or some veal. I could juice it.”

“Thanks, pidge.” Spike took the mug from her, mouth twitching up in a smile at her enthusiasm, then downed it all in one long swallow. He liked breathing, but there were definite benefits of not having to. “No need for the butcher’s shop. We stopped at Magda’s when we landed in L.A. and let her know to start the blood delivery back up.”

Buffy frowned suddenly. “How does that work now? Deliveries from out of town? Do the drivers get sucked into Willow’s spell?”

“The, the spell only affects the people who were in Sunnydale when it was cast, but the people who leave forget anything strange. The only r-reason you and Spike were affected was because Willow set up place holder spells for you.”

Dawn sat down on the arm of the chair. “People were acting like both of you were here. Mom would even put out plates for Buffy and wash them with the food still there, like she thought it’d been eaten,” she said with a shudder. “Majorly creeptacular.”

“What about the two of you?” Spike asked, eyeing Tara with sudden wariness. Yeah, she’d helped them, but that didn’t necessarily mean she was on their side. And she had his sprog. “How is it that only the both of you escaped being the Amazing Willow’s Happy Puppet Pals?”

He wasn’t being affected by the spell any longer – which, now that he thought on it had been oddly sporadic for him anyway – but he could still remember all the things the spell had made him think and feel. Dawn ought to’ve been a Willow worshipper, and Tara was meant to be a mindless ninny always hanging on her girlfriend’s coattails.

“It-it’s not just us,” Tara said. “Some demons and the, uh, the insane. They aren’t affected. And, and neither is Ben.”

The insane, was it? _Well, that explains things, don’t it?_ Spike thought. He’d had a lot of long talks with Ben while sharing Thursday’s soul. Because of those talks and Buffy’s loving support, he’d been able to endure the more traumatizing aspects of getting his soul. Without the memory of that, though? Well, it was no wonder he’d been knocked off his trolley a time or two.

“It’s because of me that Tara and Ben are free. Because of what I am,” Dawn said. “About three weeks ago, I woke up to almost everyone being a Stepford podperson. I had kind of a freak out that Willow noticed, but I managed to wiggle out of things with just a threat. I got out of there as fast as I could, which is when I ran into Ben….”


	9. Chapter 9

_:Three weeks and two days ago:_

_It figures,_ Dawn thought with a sigh as she reached into her mini fridge for a couple of sodas. _First time I sneak a guy up into my attic room, and it’s for secret plans to stop the latest big bad instead of secret smoochies._ And the big bad in question was Willow, something she was having a hard time wrapping her mind around.

She handed the man on her bed a coke, then flopped down on her beanbag chair with her own drink. She’d literally run right smack into Ben on her way out of the Magic Box. He’d been on his way in to find out what was going on, just as freaked as Dawn had been about how everyone in town was acting.

“I’m assuming this counts as somewhere safe,” Ben said, opening his soda and taking a quick drink. “So, are you going to tell me what’s going on and why the Magic Box is off limits?”

“Willow’s gone completely nutsoid. She has this creepy demon arm, and she’s messing with people’s heads. Making everyone love and practically worship her. She, uh….” Dawn stared down at her unopened can and rolled it between her palms. “I wasn’t acting right, so she threatened to turn me into energy.” She shivered at the memory of that terrifying moment. At Ben’s concerned look, she forced a smile and hurried on. “But, but it’s okay. I convinced her I really was under the spell.”

It had been less than an hour ago, and she was talking about it like it was no big deal. Good. That was… that was good. That was the mature, adult way to handle everything, and she was… she…. She wouldn’t even be fifteen yet for another month, and she wanted her mom to come and make everything better. To tell her that everything was okay and the monsters weren’t real. Except the monsters _were_ real, and this time, the monster was her sister’s best friend. Someone she had looked up to and admired.

“Dawn, it’s….” Ben trailed off, seeming to know that baseless assurances that it would be okay weren’t going to help in this situation. Things were bad, and there was no guarantee they would get better. “So, no idea why the two of us aren’t affected?”

She shook her head and went back to staring at her soda can as if it held all the answers. She read over the ingredient list, like she expected one of the long, arcane words to be a spell that would tell her _why_. Why was sweet, smart, fun, quirky Willow doing this?

_Because she’s also kind of an insecure control freak, too,_ Dawn realized unhappily. Willow organized _everything_ , even doing things like copying her class notes into color-coded notebooks with specific ink colors. A place for everything and everything in its place. That’s what she’d done to Sunnydale.

“Gronx,” Ben said suddenly into the silence, startling Dawn out of her thoughts. She’d almost forgotten he was there.

“Uh, bless you?” She looked up at him in confusion. Gronx? What the heck was a gronx, and what did it have to do with anything? It sounded like some kind of D&D monster.

“One of Glory’s minions,” he clarified with a grimace of annoyed distaste. “They don’t have anywhere to go, so they keep following me around. I tried moving to a smaller apartment, but they kept trying to cram themselves in the closets like sardines.” He shuddered, then focused on her again. “Anyway, back to Gronx. She can cast runes for us and maybe help figure out what’s going on.”

“Isn’t she likely to be under Willow’s spell, too?” Glory had had girl minions? Huh, they’d all looked male to her. Not that she’d actually seen a lot of them.

Ben shook his head. “Glory is the be all, end all of their existence. Nothing could turn them to another master. Hell, they only follow my orders and toady around on the off chance that Glory will break free again.”

“Okay,” Dawn said, setting down her still unopened can of coke before standing up and wiping her damp hands on her jeans. She started pacing. “Okay, so we have a plan.”

She wasn’t sure it was the best plan, but it was something. And it was better than just sitting around.

 

**…**

 

She’d never actually been one, but Dawn still remembered being a little girl. She remembered all the time spent playing pretend with her dolls or being Danger Girl, plucky sidekick to Power Girl. Playing pretend was a lot less fun when you had no say in the scenario, had been forced to keep it up for a week, and would end up ceasing to exist as a person if you messed up.

Finding Gronx and getting the info they’d needed should have been easy, but Riley had gotten to Glory’s minions first. He’d killed a couple of them, which had sent the rest of them scattering off like roaches. They’d come back within a few days, though, unable to stay away from their one tie to Glory for too long. Gronx had cast her runes, and now they had some answers and more of a plan.

The scabby little hobbit lady had told them all kinds of things, and that was why Dawn was sitting at the research table in the Magic Box while Ben wandered around with a hypodermic needle of her blood in his pocket, pretending to be a customer. The blood of the key was the key. For Tara, anyway, because – according to Gronx – Tara had directly manipulated Dawn’s energy when they’d locked Glory inside of Ben. As the conduit, it should have worked for Buffy – assuming Buffy had actually been there instead of the creepy imaginary friend version – but wouldn’t because their blood was metaphysically the same or something. It was weird.

At least it wasn’t too bad in the Magic Box today. Willow was away somewhere being admired, and Dawn could almost pretend everyone was normal. Giles was looking through the latest book delivery, Xander was visiting during his lunch break and stuffing himself with a Doublemeat burger from down the street, and Anya was working behind the cash register.

“Thank you for choosing to spend your money here,” the ex-demon said cheerfully to a customer. Dawn couldn’t help grinning at how happy and… well, _Anya_ she sounded. “Please came again soon and spend even more.”

“Jeez, Anya, why don’t you just hump the money already?” Xander asked with a sneer. Dawn’s grin melted away.

“That leads to very unpleasant papercuts,” Anya stated simply. “The best way to combine money and orgasms is through prostitution.” She sighed. “I know it was the best thing for Sunnydale, but I kind of wish Willow hadn’t banned it.”

“If she’d allow it for anyone, it’d be you,” Xander said. He crammed his burger into his mouth, snorting in laughter as he chewed. “But there wouldn’t be much point. You’re way too ugly and stupid.”

Instead of defending herself, Anya just nodded sadly and began counting the money. It all made Dawn feel sick. She wanted to just get out of there, to run until she was out of Sunnydale, and then just keep going without ever looking back.

_I could find Dad and live with him. He…_ hadn’t even called them back when they tried to contact him about Mom’s cancer. She’d made it through the surgery alright, but what if she hadn’t? Or what if Glory’s minions hadn’t hit her in the head, revealing the aneurysm that could have killed her? Would Dad have just left them to fend for themselves?

Finally, the door to the backroom opened, and Tara timidly scuttled out, pulling Dawn away from her depressing thoughts. She gave the witch a few moments to disappear into the depths of the store to straighten the shelves, then quietly followed, signaling to Ben when she passed him.

“Quail feathers don’t go with crow feathers,” Tara muttered to herself as she frowned at the bundle of feathers in her hands. She scanned the shelves, quietly singing the ABC song under breath.

Dawn wasn’t sure if it was because of the apparent dumbing down from Willow or just because people had to do that sometimes to remember the exact order of the alphabet. _I know I do,_ Dawn thought. Then she shook aside the distraction. She hated what she was going to have to do, but there wasn’t much else she _could_ do.

“Dawn, wh-what…?” Tara trailed off, her eyes going wide in terror as Dawn lunged at her.

Tara was a full grown woman who knew magic. She should have easily overpowered Dawn before turning her into a frog or something. Instead, she batted at Dawn with all of the strength of a day old kitten.

“I’m sorry,” Dawn whispered as she clamped a hand over Tara’s mouth to keep her from screaming.

That’s when Ben rushed in, pulling the syringe out of his breast pocket and removing the cap. Tara struggled even more, but Dawn was able to hold onto her as Ben jabbed the needle through the woman’s skirt and into her thigh. She tensed and convulsed violently before suddenly going limp. Dawn gently lowered her to the ground. Tara just curled into the fetal position and started shaking.

_Oh god, she’s dying,_ Dawn thought in panic. _She’s going to be dead, and we killed her. What have we done? What am I going to do? What…._ Her hamster wheel thoughts slowed as she realized Tara wasn’t dying. She was crying.

“I’m sorry,” Dawn repeated, her voice thick with emotion.

She couldn’t even imagine what Tara had to be going through right now. Willow had pretty much mind raped everyone in Sunnydale, but what she’d done to Tara was even worse. She’d been violated mind, soul, and body.

_Maybe Ben can help her like he’s been helping Spike?_ Dawn thought, kneeling down to awkwardly pat Tara’s shoulder.

“W-willow… she, sh-she…. The, the things she’s done….”

“I know. I know, but it’s gonna be okay,” Dawn murmured. “Me, you, and Ben, we’re gonna figure this all out and fix it. I promise.”

Tara slowly sat up and looked at her. Her eyes were red, puffy, and full of misery, but there was determination there as well. And anger. She’d never seen Tara angry before. It was kind of scary.

Tara took a deep breath, fighting to compose herself. “You’re right,” she said quietly. “We’re going to fix this. No matter what it takes.”

 

**…**

 

_:Present:_

Buffy paced the crypt, absently chewing on a thumbnail as she thought about what Dawn and Tara had just told them. Even with Willow in control, it was still the Hellmouth. She had always thought things slowed down in summer, but apparently, they got busier. It was just that it was usually demon families coming to take in the Hellmouthy ambiance like a vacation to the beach. Dawn, Tara, and Ben had been trying to round up the harmless ones and hide them away right on top of the Hellmouth itself.

_That might be a place to stash Spike and Thursday_ , she thought, glancing over at where Spike was sitting with their daughter in his arms. Buffy’s protective instincts didn’t like the idea, and neither did the rest of her. An idea stirred, but there was no way Spike was going to go for it.

“Th-there might be a way to stop Willow,” Tara said quietly. Buffy stopped pacing and looked at her, waiting for more. “I-I….” She pulled a small glowing stone out of her pocket. “I need to do a little more work with it, but, but this could fix things. Maybe.”

“That the bit of mojo you needed my help with?” Spike asked, head tilting as he studied the little stone resting on Tara’s palm.

She nodded. “It....” She paused a moment to collect herself, then continued. “Once it’s finished, Willow needs to be weakened and distracted. The-then I have to do another spell while someone touches her with the stone and makes contact with her humanity. She can either be saved or, or….” She looked down, then back up, her gaze flickering over them all before locking on Buffy. “Killed. It’ll be up to whoever touches her with the stone.”

Killed? Willow could be killed? All the cookies in the world wouldn’t smooth over what Willow had done, but that didn’t mean Buffy wanted her dead. Well, most of her didn’t want her dead. That protective instinct was holding a major grudge about Willow endangering her baby. Heck, _most_ of her held a grudge, but wasn’t quite as homicide-y about it.

“As long as there’s a chance that she can be saved, we’re going to take it,” Buffy promised. She took a deep breath and ran a hand through her hair. “Tara, go ahead and finish the spell on the stone. You’ll have more privacy if you go down to the lower level.” She glanced at her sister. “Dawn, I need you to go home. The blood delivery should be there soon, and Mom’s gonna freak about it. Get it before she sees and bring it here.”

The girl nodded and darted out of the crypt. Tara gave Buffy a considering look, then quietly gathered the box of supplies she’d brought and went to the lower level.

“What’s goin’ on in that busy little head of yours, Slayer?” Spike asked, standing up and readjusting his hold on Thursday as he watched Buffy pace. “Pretty sure you didn’t send Dawn and Tara away so we could have a quickie…. Not that being wrong on that would bother me, mind.”

He did the head tilt _and_ that thing where he curled his tongue behind his teeth. _Tell him he’s wrong,_ her hormones demanded. _Tell him he’s wrong and then jump him!_ God, how she wanted to. He was going to hate what she had in mind. He might even hate her, considering what she’s probably have to do to make him do it. It would be worth it, though, as long as he was safe.

“Thursday is going to L.A. To Angel’s hotel.”

“Are you out of your bleedin’ _mind_?” There was a wild look in his eyes, and he clutched Thursday tight enough to his chest to wake her up and make her cry.

He glared at Buffy like it was her fault – which it kind of was – and lightly rocked the baby. He had serious separation anxiety if he was away from Thursday for too long, and she knew he’d had nightmares about Angel taking the baby away from him. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anywhere else where she’d be safe.

“Come on now, love,” he said softly. “You’re alright. Daddy’s here. No need for tears.” He glared at Buffy again. “Did you somehow forget Great Grampy Forehead wanting to off the sprog before she was even born?”

“I didn’t forget. He hasn’t done or said anything about her since he had Wesley research the ritual,” she pointed out. “She’ll be okay. Especially since you’ll be there, too.”

“The _hell_ I will.” She wished she could believe the quietness of his voice was because he was trying not to startle Thursday again. Spike’s loud anger was just surface emotion. If you gave him a minute to cool down, he’d be over it. When he went quiet…. “You nee-”

“No. I don’t,” she said, her own voice just as quiet. In her case, it wasn’t anger. It was firm determination.

She knew, even before she saw the look in his eyes, how much it hurt him to be told he wasn’t needed. That he was basically useless when it came to stopping Willow or any other human, and that _Angel_ of all people was being trusted to protect him and Thursday. She knew, but she’d said it anyway. She would make sure he was safe, even if she had to break him to do it.


	10. Chapter 10

_You nee-_

_No. I don’t._

_Sticks an’ stones may break your bones,_ Spike thought numbly, _but words? Words’ll bloody well kill you._ He knew that more intimately than most. Words had sent him out in the night, crying his bleeding eyes out like the biggest nancy-boy git in all creation. Dru had seduced him with words, and one single word from him, _yes_ , had ended his life and set him loose to take the lives of so many others. Would she have turned him if he hadn’t said yes? No way to be sure, honestly, not when it came to Dru. Either way, he’d agreed and become a monster.

Buffy was speaking again, but he couldn’t focus on the words. Couldn’t tell what they were. His mind inserted the ones she’d said just moments before. _No. I don’t._ Part of him knew exactly what she was doing and was right brassed off about it. Trying to send him away to Angel “for his own good” like the idiot kid in most animal friend movies who sent their beastie back into the wild. Because crawling with parasites, only eating when you had a successful hunt, and being at the mercy of the elements and other wild creatures was much better than being cared for and loved, apparently.

The part of him that understood all that wanted to snap back at her, tell her that she wouldn’t know what she needed if it came up and bit her right on her pert little arse. Most of him was too busy feeling hurt, betrayed, and worthless to pay that part any mind. Of course Buffy wanted to send him and the sprog to bloody _Angel._ He was the great sodding hero, wasn’t he? Spike was naught but a pathetic shadow that should drag himself out into the sun to put everyone out of the misery of having to deal with him. Even Thursday would be better off without him in the long run.

He looked down at her. She’d quieted down after he’d upset her by holding on too tight, and now she was gazing up at him with adoration. Such a trusting little thing, and he was going to fail her. No way around it. He was going to fail her just like he failed everyone in his life. Buffy was right, she needed to be sent away, and not just because of Red.

_Oh, put a cork in it, already,_ a little disgusted voice whispered in the back of his mind. _So you aren’t some kind of perfect saint. Boo-bloody-hoo! Yeah, you’re going to fail her, so what? Bloody well happens, don’t it? That’s part of life. You just pick yourself up, shake off the dirt, and keep goin’. You don’t just stand around like a berk and whinge on about it all._

The foul-mouthed voice of reason had a point, but it couldn’t quite get through the wall of self-hatred. Worthless, filthy monster what could never be washed clean or be deserving of love or happiness. Buffy didn’t need the likes of him mucking up her life.

He’d never just up and leave her, claiming it was for “her own good.” He hadn’t the right to make that call. But… well, she’d told him to go, hadn’t she?

 

**…**

 

“Spike?”

Buffy had known the idea of taking himself and Thursday to Angel would hurt Spike, and that saying she didn’t need him would make it even worse. She’d expected yelling, or quiet, bitter words. She hadn’t expected him to just… _stop_. To just go perfectly still to the point where he wasn’t even breathing.

“I know you aren’t happy with this, but –”

He finally moved, just enough to look down at the baby in his arms. God, the look in his eyes. It was the same one he would get in Entebbe before asking her to take Thursday and go enjoy the city for a few hours. It was the look he got when his metaphorical inner demons overwhelmed him and forced him to punish himself for what he’d done after gaining a literal inner demon.

He’d be fine – or as close as he could get to it for right now. She didn’t think he could really be _fine_ until he’d fully adjusted to the soul – if he had a few hours alone to just sort of… absorb and work through the guilt and depression, but they didn’t have a few hours. There was no telling what Willow would do next or when Riley would randomly decide to come back. Spike and Thursday were too vulnerable. They had to get out of Sunnydale, and the only person she knew outside of Sunnydale who could keep them both safe was, unfortunately, Angel.

She knew that had to be part of what was going through his head right now. Part of her wanted to be angry, like she’d been when Riley had had his hissy fit over Angel, but this wasn’t just some pissing contest. Spike had legitimate grievances against Angel that had absolutely nothing to do with her. Asking him to shelve those and play nice wasn’t really being fair to him.

_Yeah, well, life isn’t fair,_ she thought. If it was, they wouldn’t even be together and Thursday wouldn’t exist. Sometimes fair sucked big time while unfair gave you perfect little miracles. Spike knew that just as much as she did, and he was damn good at rolling with the punches. The only reason he’d wallowed as much as he had in Entebbe was because he’d given himself permission to get the majority out of his system all in one go. He needed to revoke that permission, pull on his big boy panties, and get himself and Thursday down to L.A.

Before she could say as much, Spike closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep, shuddering breath. “Here. She’ll need a feed before we head out of town,” he said, gently handing Thursday over to her. His voice was disturbingly dull, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “The jars you refilled earlier should do her for a bit. She’ll manage on formula after until you can pick her up from Angel. Send you an address when I can. I’d… I’d at least like pictures of her.”

Pictures of…? What the hell? _He’s leaving me,_ she thought numbly. _Leaving us._ No. No, that wasn’t it. Spike didn’t leave. It wasn’t who he was. He just thought she didn’t want him anymore. Stupid vampire was being… stupid. And she had her arms full of baby at the moment so she couldn’t even smack him.

“Damn it, Spike!” she snapped. “I want you to leave because I love you, you idiot! And I want you to come back once this is all over.” The look he gave her was startled and confused. She forgot sometimes that he had almost as many abandonment issues as she did. “There’s no one I’d rather have at my back, but –”

The crypt door suddenly burst open, cutting her off. Riley’s old buddy Graham stood there with four other men, Dawn between them all with a Styrofoam cooler in her arms.

 

**…**

 

Was amazing, the amount of clarity you could get from a threat waltzing right in as if it owned the place. Adrenaline – or the vampire equivalent thereof – jolted through Spike at the sight of the group of humans. Soldier boys. They were in civvies, but he recognized one of the lot. A voice in his head was yammering on about being helpless, but he ruthlessly shoved it down.

_Sod that,_ he thought, eyes narrowing. The fact that they were human just meant he couldn’t get in a nice dose of violence. It didn’t take away all of his options, and it didn’t make him useless. It just meant he had to get a bit creative.

Grab the leader and one of the others and bash their heads together. A bit silly, yeah, but effective for knocking out two enemies at once. Then he’d push Dawn to the ground and ride out the pain from the chip while keeping her covered. The soldiers would have to get through him before they could get to the girl. He was tough enough to take whatever they could dish out and give the Slayer time to get Thursday tucked away and subdue them.

“It’s okay, they’re on our side!” Dawn called out before Spike could act on his plan. “Sort of. I think.”

_Bloody hell._ He’d been looking forward to a good row, even if he couldn’t do much in the way of hitting. Would have at least gotten to see Buffy in action. Always a joy, that. Definitely would have done something about the mood he was in. ‘Course, the nibblet could be wrong about things or just saying it under duress.

“We’re just here to find Finn,” the man in charge – Graham he thought the bloke’s name was – said. “He vanished right in front of his squad in the middle of a mission about three weeks ago. We remotely reactivated the Initiative surveillance cameras once it was determined his disappearance wasn’t due to the locals, so we know he’s in town.”

Well, that explained where Finn had come from, then. Wanker really _had_ scarpered after Buffy had given him what for, and Willow had fetched him back. Would anyone bother if it was Spike who took off? He glanced back at Buffy, and his insecurities tried to overwhelm him again. _Bugger off_ , he told them. They were in the middle of something here, and being a self-centered wanker wasn’t going to help the situation any.

“You want to rescue Riley, that means you’re going to need our help,” she said quietly, an odd tone to her voice as she shifted the sprog to one arm so she could wrap the other around his waist. The physical contact helped, soothed the jagged edges. “If you want that help, you’re going to have to give us something we need.”

Spike frowned but didn’t say anything. He had no idea what she was on about – they were the ones bloody well in need of help, not the other way ‘round – but he wasn’t going open his mouth and muck up whatever she had planned. He did, though, wave Dawn over to them. A couple of the soldier boys tensed, but they let her come through. She put the cooler down and took Thursday from Buffy.

Graham’s lips compressed into a thin line, but he sounded calm when he asked, “What exactly is it you need from us, Summers? What is it that’s so important that you won’t help Riley without it? You know, they guy you used to date before you drove him to vampire addiction?”

“You watch your bloody mouth,” Spike growled, feeling Buffy flinch against him. “Not her fault Finn wasn’t man enough to handle being with a strong woman.”

“Stay out of this, hostile. It’s none of your –”

“How fast can you get a surgeon here?” Buffy asked, cutting him off. “One who could take out one those microchips Walsh came up with?”

It took Spike a moment to realize what she was getting at, mainly because the entire idea was such a shock. She wanted…. No, that wasn’t…. Free, he’d finally be free. Free to… to maim and kill. To murder innocents and leave their families in despair. Oh god, what the hell was she thinking? She couldn’t do this.

“No,” he said, pulling away from Buffy and shaking his head. “You can’t…. It isn’t… it isn’t _safe_.”

Buffy frowned, and sighed. “Come on, Spike, you can’t possibly be afraid of the consequences.” How could she say that? She knew what he’d been before the chip had put a stop to the worst of his evil. “You’re a vampire. Even if the doctor makes a mistake, you’ll heal, especially if I give you some of my blood after.”

“That’s not…. Buffy, _I’m_ not safe.”

Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped as she finally understood. He turned away from her, wrapping his arms around himself to stop the sudden shaking. If he agreed…. If he agreed, no more being vulnerable to humans. He’d be able to bite again. And that just led back to his fears. The pain had kept him honest for so long. He didn’t trust his soul to do the same. He was weak. He was bad. He’d said _yes._

“Spike,” Buffy said softly, gently grabbing his arm. “You don’t need the chip. It’s not helping you with anything. It’s just holding you back.”

“I…”

“Please, Spike?” she whispered. “I… I lied. I _do_ need you. I need you at my back. As my partner. And you can’t be that with the chip. Not fully.”

He closed his eyes, struggling with the conflicting emotions. He wanted the bloody thing out of his head. It was a muzzle holding him back, making him weak. He wanted it to stay, to be a crutch he could lean on to make sure he’d stay safe.

_That’s what it would be, if I kept it,_ he realized. A crutch. Just an excuse to not actually grow and become a better person. The sodding thing hadn’t forced him to do good before the soul. He’d done that himself. For Buffy.

He opened his eyes and took a deep breath. “Right then. Let’s do this.”


	11. Chapter 11

“Oh god,” Buffy whispered, trying not to be sick as they made their way through the abandoned Initiative headquarters, the only place in Sunnydale set up for brain surgery with no chance of one of Willow’s pod people seeing them. Graham and his men were in a loose circle around her, Spike, and the doctor they’d brought in from L.A. “You just… left them.”

She’d seen a lot of horrible things in her life, but this…. Bodies were everywhere, both human and demon. Most of the Initiative soldiers and scientists hadn’t give a damn about the demons – harmful or otherwise – but they’d also sealed away their friends and coworkers, leaving them to rot in the debris. What had the families been told? What had been the excuses given for all of the funerals held with no bodies?

“We didn’t really have much choice,” Graham said, voice low. Like her, he seemed to think talking at normal volume would somehow disturb the dead. “We couldn’t just let the HSTs get out and run loose.”

They could have. A lot of the demons had been fairly neutral, and even the truly dangerous ones would have probably gone to ground to lick their wounds. Buffy would have been able to take them down before they did much, if any, damage. Of course, it had been Adam who had trapped them all inside, but the military could have come back and opened the place up at any time. The remains could have been collected and given proper burials.

 _At least Dawn and Tara aren’t here to see this,_ she thought. They’d gone to their respective homes to avoid suspicion, Tara with an embroidered shirt as a gift for Willow and Dawn with a tale about a day spent in sibling bonding. Thursday had been left with Ben at his apartment with enough milk for two feedings. It had been hard parting from again, but this was no place for an adult, much less a baby. Of course, she hadn’t known it was like this when the decision had been made, but taking an infant along to the place where her father had been held captive and experimented on had seemed kind of ooky.

And speaking of ooky.... Buffy grimaced, shuddering in disgust as she stepped over some kind of greasy, foul smelling fluid. Spike’s hand ghosted along her back before settling firmly on her hip and pulling her against him. She leaned into it, letting the cool, solid feel of him against her side soothe her unsettled feelings.

“You alright, love?” he murmured into her hair as he nuzzled it.

“Yeah,” she murmured back. It was horrifying, but she wasn’t exactly a sheltered princess or anything. “You?”

Before he could answer, there was a strange rustling sound from nearby. The soldiers tensed, carefully moving their flashlights to try to show whatever was making the sound. The rustling came again, along with skittering. Then there was a sort of _woosh_ followed by a roar as something slammed into one of Graham’s men.

Buffy instantly pulled away from Spike and punched the thing. It was about seven feet tall with dark, matted fur and tusks sticking out of its slobbery mouth. It wasn’t a type of demon she was familiar with and the only weapon she had on her was a stake, but if the commandos had been able to capture it, she was pretty sure she could kill it. _Would it have even_ needed _killing if it hadn’t been brought here?_ she wondered as she kicked it in what she was pretty sure was the gut. Just because something looked nasty didn’t mean it was.

The thing staggered back, but before Buffy could close in again, a blur of black and white flashed past her. Spike tackled the demon, taking both it and himself to the corpse strewn floor. They were up in an instant, her vampire easily dodging swipes from the other demon’s huge, clawed hands. He was practically dancing with it, somehow able to move through the bodies and debris with an almost feral grace. She hadn’t seen him that full of life and energy since the trials to win back his soul.

 _This is the first time he’s fought anything since then,_ she realized. The soldiers stirred beside her, no doubt getting their weapons ready to join in. “No,” she said quietly. “You’ll just get in his way. Let him fight.”

“You heard the lady,” Graham said, handing her a flashlight. “The medical lab should be right through this door.” He inclined his head towards it. “We’ll make sure there aren’t any nasty surprises and help the doctor get set up.”

She nodded absently, most of her attention on Spike. The flashlight didn’t show a lot of detail, but she’d fought beside him often enough to mentally fill in the blanks. She wanted to join in, to work out her confused feelings about Willow with some mindless violence, but she held back. Spike needed this more than she did at the moment.

It didn’t take long. Punch, kick, stagger back from a claw slash that connected, whirl out of the way of another. She’d missed seeing this. Hell, if she was honest with herself, she missed fighting against him. An opponent who could fight, wasn’t above using the occasional dirty trick to spice things up a bit, and could keep up the banter through it all. She had never wanted to admit it, but she’d always loved their fights.

Soon, the chip would be out, and they could actually, truly spar. None of what they had now, with Spike just dodging or blocking and throwing the occasional punch he knew would never land. No more of the guilt she felt sometimes during rough sex. She knew he liked it, but she could see it in his eyes sometimes, the frustration that he couldn’t play, too.

And speaking of playing…. Spike leaped onto the creature’s back, grabbed its head, and twisted with a sharp _crack_ of sound. He jumped free of the falling body and bounded towards her, eyes bright. If he’d had a tail, Buffy was pretty sure it would have been wagging from sheer joy.

“Have fun?” she asked with a slight smile.

Instead of answering in words, he pulled her against him and claimed her mouth in a deep – and much too brief – kiss. Then he kissed her cheeks, the tip of her nose, and each eyelid before resting his forehead against hers and just breathing in her scent. She let herself just bask in it for a moment, let herself soak in the feeling of being loved and cherished. Then she reluctantly pulled back and gazed into his eyes.

There were shadows there again, but…. She smiled again and reached out to cup his cheek. “Welcome back, Spike.”

 

**…**

 

Such a wee little thing for all the pain it had caused. _‘Course, if its size were meant to reflect the amount of pain, it’d be bigger than a bloody house,_ Spike thought wryly as he stared at the microchip in his hand. It was out. The chip was out, and he was free to do as he would.

Before the soul…. No. If he was going to be honest about his faults, he had to be honest about his finer qualities as well. If it had been before he’d fallen in love with Buffy, he’d have gone out on a slaughtering spree without a thought. There was an urge even now – with both Buffy and soul – to do just that. To hunt and kill, to bathe in the blood of his natural prey. To be a _real_ vampire again.

The way it made him feel, though – the thought of killing innocent people – was worse in a way than the pain from the chip. All those people, killed the same way he had been. Their friends and loved ones left grieving…. The idea of being the cause of that again….

He should call the doctor back in, have his still aching head cut back open and the chip shoved back in. He couldn’t be trusted. He wasn’t _safe_. The only way he could be safe was if he were chipped. Or somehow turned human.

 _Bugger that,_ he thought in disgust. He didn’t _want_ to be human. The fight he’d had out there, that had driven away any lingering doubt about that. Truth was, he _liked_ being a vampire, and the soul hadn’t changed that. The power, the durability, the enhanced senses…. He loved it all and didn’t want to give it up.

He wanted to keep fighting demons. For the thrill of it, yeah, and also to… well, help people. Be a bit of a superhero. Not out of any ridiculous notion of atonement – you atoned for things like nicking library books, not over a century of mass murder – but because it was the right thing to do. And also fun.

“Spike?” Buffy came up to him and put her hand on his shoulder. She was the only one still in the room with him and been quiet up until then, giving him a few minutes. “You okay?”

Was he okay? He stared at the chip in his hand. It was a leash. A muzzle that had held him back. He’d needed it for a bit, to give him time with Buffy to realize his feelings and become as good as he could be without a soul. Buffy was right. He’d never be able to grow if he used it as a crutch.

Was he okay? “I will be.”

He closed his hand and squeezed.

 

**…**

 

Buffy was pretty sure that thinking deep thinky thoughts was a really bad idea right after brain surgery. But there Spike was – bandaged head and blood stained hair and all – staring at the chip in his hand and obviously lost in thought. It had to be weird, holding the thing that had caused him so much pain and made him helpless against the majority of the population.

He was safe now. Or, well, safer. The average human couldn’t hurt him anymore. Willow wasn’t the average human, though, and there was a part of Buffy that wanted to send Spike away anyway. It was like in the movies when the big manly hero sent the “little woman” off for her own good. She’d always hated that, and it would be the exact same thing if she did it to Spike. Just because their genders were reversed from the movie cliché didn’t magically make it okay.

Besides, he already had a set role and everything for tomorrow’s plan. Since - according to Tara - Willow claimed she liked hearing her closest minions belittling Spike, the Magic Box’s fancy new warding had been designed to allow him through while keeping out all other demons.  He’d come in through the basement once the last of Graham’s men trickled in, pretending to be customers. They’d distract her, and Spike would hit her a few times, leaving her confused and even more distracted. That would be Buffy’s chance to touch Willow with the spell stone while Tara started up the secondary spell.

That was the plan anyway. _And if it goes down exactly like that, I’ll eat my favorite pair of boots,_ she thought. She shook her head with a sigh and focused on Spike again. He was still just standing there, quiet and unmoving. It was weird and unnatural for him.

“Spike?” She walked over to him and put her hand on his shoulder, offering support. “You okay?”

No answer. Buffy was starting to think he was too lost inside his thoughts to hear her when he finally said, “I will be.”

Then he closed his hand around the chip and squeezed, crushing it beyond any hope of repair. That was a weight lifted off. She’d been worried he might want to keep the thing as some kind of gruesome souvenir. She waited until after he’d opened his hand and let the pieces fall before pulling her hand off of his shoulder. Then she swung it back and slapped him between the shoulder blades at full strength.

 

**…**

 

Spike staggered forward from the force of the blow, a startled yip escaping him as pain blossomed through his upper back. “What the bloody hell was that about?” he growled as he turned to face her, feeling confused and betrayed. Not to mention brassed off.

He liked rough play and fighting, but that didn’t mean he liked being hit for no reason. Especially when he couldn’t.... Couldn’t fight back....

He could fight back. He’d been so caught up in thinking about being a danger to others that he hadn’t really given that aspect of it much thought. He wasn’t a potential victim to every human he passed anymore.

As if knowing exactly what he was thinking, Buffy grinned and settled into a fighting stance. “Come on, Spike. You know you wanna dance.”

Then she launched herself at him. He dodged her first couple of blows and blocked the third, automatically falling into the rhythm of their usual sparring. That wasn’t what Buffy was after, though, and he knew it. She wanted him to fight back.

He tried. He threw a punch, fully intending for it to land right in the middle of her smug face, but he faltered at the last minute. A voice shrieked in the back of his mind, telling him it would only lead to pain; his head would explode into agony, leaving him in a defenseless heap on the floor.

The voice was right about one thing. He _did_ end up on the sodding floor, but only because Buffy decided to kick his legs out from under him. She dropped down, straddling his hips and pinning his shoulders. It was something they’d done several times before, but this time she put real strength into the hold, keeping him from flipping them or wiggling loose. She hadn’t done it like that since last fall, when they’d gotten caught up in the fertility ritual. When she’d….

“Off,” he said shortly, fighting back a panic attack. What the bloody hell did she think she was playing at? She had to know what this was doing to him. He looked up into her eyes. All playfulness was gone, leaving them dark with an odd mix of sympathy and determination. Yeah. Bitch knew _exactly_ what she was doing. “Damn it, Buffy, get _off_!”

“Make me,” she said, voice calm and even. “If you hesitate tomorrow, you could _die_. You want to help? Then you _make_ me let you up.”

He saw it then, the fear lurking deep in her eyes. If he couldn’t hit her in a play fight, how were things going to go in the real fight against Willow? He’d hit Buffy before _with_ the bloody chip. Just gritted his teeth and did the deed, then rode out the pain as best he could. Hell, he’d been ready to attack the soldiers earlier when he’d thought they were a threat. He could do this.

The memory of what had happened the last time she’d actually been serious about holding him down flashed through his mind. The chip had fired, leaving him even more helpless to her attack. He growled and banished the memory, then bent his arms at the elbow to grab Buffy’s forearms. He yanked her down low enough to headbutt her, then shoved her away while she was disoriented.

They both got to their feet at nearly the same time and the fight was on again, this time with Spike going on the offensive. She’d been holding back with him during their spars, afraid to really cut loose when he couldn’t properly defend himself. She wasn’t holding back this time, and she was magnificent.

He didn’t hold back either. They ducked and dodged and traded blows until he managed to get in a kick that sent her staggering into the wall. She pushed off, only to get body slammed back against it. He pulled her arms above her head, holding her wrists together with one hand. They were both breathing heavily – even though he didn’t actually need to breathe – and her cheeks were flushed.

She could have pushed him away, but she didn’t. Instead, she tilted her head, offering her neck. No knife, piece of glass, torn metal from a soda can, or even her own nails clawing at her flesh. She wanted him to bite her. To vamp out and sink his fangs into the lovely column of her throat.

He swallowed hard. His gums itched, and he could practically taste her. She gave him little tastes of her blood all the time, usually even straight from the tap, but this was different. This was….

“You sure about this, love?” he asked, voice thick with desire.

“Do it,” she whispered.

He closed his eyes, taking a shuddering breath of her scent. Oh god, she smelled amazing. He vamped out, but hesitated. Before he could ask again if she was sure, she pulled one arm free and buried her fingers in his hair, pushing his head against her neck. He moaned as his fangs sank into her flesh, the slight resistance sending a tingle through his gums that seemed to sizzle straight down to his groin.

He’d missed this. Not the blood – he’d been getting that regularly – but the bite. It was how vampires were supposed to feed. How they reproduced. It was life and death and sex and violence all rolled up together. Buffy’s blood welled up past his fangs, the heady flavor dancing along his tongue. Saliva flooded his mouth at the taste, and he pulled out, sucking and lapping at the two neat little wounds he’d left – not easy to be that careful, but his Slayer was worth it – letting the anticoagulant and euphoretic work into her bloodstream like a drug.

She gasped and writhed against him, surrendering herself to the sensation. Surrendering herself to him. He could suck her dry, leave her an empty corpse. Or… take her nearly there and feed her his own, turn her and keep him with her forever…. He sucked one last time at the wounds, then kissed his way to her mouth.

The temptation was still there – would likely always still be there – but he loved Buffy as she was. His beautiful, living Slayer with her fierce heart and giving soul. The woman who had given him back himself. The self he gladly, freely, gave to her.


	12. Chapter 12

Buffy turned her head to get a better look at her neck in her bathroom mirror and winced. Yeah, that wasn’t going to be easy to hide. Spike had been _very_ careful, but she still had obvious fang marks right in the middle of a great big hickey. She carefully arranged her hair, putting in strategic bobbi pins to help hold it in place, and fiddled with the collar of her terrycloth robe. It wouldn’t last past close scrutiny, but thanks to Dawn’s annoying (and, she had to admit, kind of genius) cover story, she wouldn’t have to be that close to Riley tonight.

 _And speaking of that cover story…._ She sighed and made a few gross, grunty sounds as she pretended to be suffering the horrible consequences of a bean burrito and milkshake eating contest with Dawn. With both of them supposedly feeling pretty awful, it made sense for her to spend the night in Dawn’s room. And if Riley got excessively kissy or handsy, she could claim a sudden need for the bathroom.

She gave herself one last look in the mirror, then opened the door, nearly running right smack into the man himself as she tried to leave. Riley loomed over her, staring down with worried eyes and leaning in like he was going to kiss her. So not going to happen.

“Oh, ew, no!” She pushed at his chest, using just barely enough of her strength to hold him back. “No kissing while I’m all gross and disgusting.” She grimaced in distaste and stuck her tongue out for a moment, crossing her eyes in an attempt to look at it. Her main complaint was supposed to be diarrhea – this was seriously going to be the last time she let Dawn come up with a cover story – but vomiting didn’t seem that farfetched. Bean burritos with milkshakes? Very much of the ew.

“Do I at least get a hug?” he asked with a pout that he probably thought made him look sexy. It just gave her the urge to ask – in a silly baby-talk voice – if he was hungry or making a poopy. Or both. The world through mommy goggles was a very strange place.

God, she missed Thursday. The way she looked in her sleep, her adorable little smile and laughter when she was happy, heck, even the way she sometimes screeched like a banshee and flailed her little fists when she didn’t get what she wanted the instant she wanted it. She was a strong little baby, and had once even managed to hit Spike hard enough to give him a bloody nose. He, of course, had just grinned and gone all proud papa over the entire thing.

“Sure,” she said, forcing a smile as she wrapped her arms around Riley. She was able to manage a peck on his cheek before pulling away. “I’m pretty tired.”

“Okay,” he said, sounding reluctant as he backed away to give her room to walk to Dawn’s door. “I’ll just be in… well, uh, your room.” He gave her a lopsided little smile. “Just give me a holler if you need me for anything.”

“I will,” she promised. It wasn’t even a lie. If she needed him, she’d call for him. There just wasn’t any chance she’d need him. Hadn’t that been one of his reasons for the vampire whores? She hadn’t _needed_ him enough.

She slipped into Dawn’s room, just barely managing to gently close the door instead of slamming it in Riley’s face. It had been months, but that whole situation still pissed her off. Hadn’t needed him enough…. Ugh. Like she was supposed to be some weak little damsel constantly clutching at him for support. _And when I_ did _need him and his support, he was too busy being pissy that I wasn’t spending enough time with him while my mom was in the hospital._

“You okay?” Dawn asked quietly.

Buffy took a breath and closed her eyes for a moment, getting her anger under control before opening them again and looking at her little sister. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding a mug and looking nervous.

“Mom brought us mint tea,” she explained, lifting a second mug off of the nightstand and handing it to Buffy as she sat down beside her. “For our upset stomachs.”

Buffy stared down into the tea. If she actually _had_ been sick and everything had been the way it was supposed to be, Spike would have been the one making tea for her. He probably would have also been in the room with them, massaging her feet and telling wild stories to her and Dawn to keep their minds off of things.  

“Do… do you think it’s going to work?” Dawn asked after a few moments of silence. She sounded young and scared. “The plan?”

“It seems to be, so far. Kind of gross, but hey, no Riley snuggles. And there’s yummy Mom tea,” Buffy answered lightly before taking a sip. “Mmm. Minty.”

Dawn snorted and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, of course _this_ part of the plan is awesome. I came up with it, after all.” She looked away. “I meant… the other part of the plan. Tomorrow….”

“I know.”

Tomorrow. She wished they could have just gotten it over with already, but according to Tara, Willow did creepy meditation stuff at night and had all of her defenses up during it. They had a better chance of pulling things off in the morning, when Willow would be at the Magic Box. She felt safe and in complete control there, which meant she wouldn’t be as on guard.

She glanced towards the pair of jeans she’d set out for tomorrow. The spell stone Tara had given her was tucked into a pocket. Such a tiny little thing, all charged up from contact with a vampire’s humanity and ability to love – two things she wouldn’t have even believed existed a year ago – while that same ability had been used to retrigger a weird fertility ritual. It would give her a chance to bring Willow back to herself… or to kill her. She was pretty sure their friendship was dead past any saving, but she was going to do her best to save Willow.

“It feels weird,” Dawn said into the silence. “Still being in this room. Usually I sneak up into the attic pretty soon after pretending to go to bed.”

“Weird night all around,” Buffy agreed, thinking about her baby and boyfriend and wishing they were there with her. That Spike was cuddled up with her. That she had nursed Thursday an hour ago instead of secretly using her breast pump and hiding the milk in jars in the back of the fridge. Still, as much as she wanted to be with them, she knew they were safer where they were, tucked away in Ben’s apartment.

 

**…**

 

Spike slunk through the disturbingly quiet streets of Sunnydale until he reached his destination. He knew sneaking out of Ben’s flat hadn’t exactly been the most brilliant idea ever, but he needed to do this, and he needed to do it alone. The fight with the demon and playing with Buffy after getting the chip out had settled the soul a bit. Helped him get past some of the things muddling him all up.

And now… now he was off to do something he hadn’t felt worthy of. Still didn’t, honestly, but it wasn’t about being worthy. It was about a genuine feeling of remorse and recognition of one’s misdeeds. _Which probably includes breaking into a sodding church_ , he thought wryly as he pulled the set of lockpicks out of his pocket and knelt in front of the door. ‘Course, he wasn’t there to actually nick anything or mess the place up, so maybe it wouldn’t count against him.

He got the picks in only to discover the bloody door was already unlocked. Huh. _Is it like that all the time because this is Sunnydale, or just for now because this is Willow’s shiny, happy Sunnydale?_ he wondered. Not really important in the grand scheme, though, now was it? He shrugged and went inside, finding himself in a nice little lobby with a few scattered tables and benches. There was a bulletin board covered with children’s crayon drawings of the various miracles of Christ and a note reminding the congregation that the monthly seniors’ brunch was this coming Sunday.

He passed it all by and made his way to the sanctuary, past the pews and around behind the pulpit. There it was. No garish depiction of a tortured Jesus, thankfully, just a plain wooden cross up on the wall. Despite what the things could do to his kind, he didn’t recall ever being quite so intimidated by one before.

“So… just popped in for a bit of a visit. It’s, uh… it’s been a while, and I’ve….” He trailed off, unsure of what to say. He didn’t really _need_ to say anything, he supposed. Was intent that mattered, wasn’t it? But words had always been important to him. He needed the words, even if God didn’t. He took a deep breath and went down to one knee in front of the cross.

“I’ve done a lot of terrible things, and when I did ‘em… I enjoyed every moment of it. Things are different now, though, yeah? _I’m_ different…. But I’m also still me, and I….” He swallowed, throat suddenly dry. Soul or no, he was still a demon. He shouldn’t be doing this. He wasn’t welcome here. “I shouldn’t ask. Not worthy at all. I do regret it, though. Every nasty thing I did, I wish I could undo. But I can’t. All I can do… is ask forgiveness. So….” He closed his eyes and bowed his head. “Forgive me, Lord, for all the evil I’ve done. For all the lives I’ve ruined and people I’ve killed.”

He didn’t know if it was his imagination – he’d a right active one after all – but for just a moment, kneeling there in front of that cross, he felt a sense of utter peace.

 

**…**

 

Dawn stared at the two unconscious bodies in the living room, feeling nervous and scared. The fact that Riley had been drugged with sleeping pills and dumped unceremoniously on the floor didn’t bother her – the big jerkface deserved it – but seeing her mom just lying there on the couch was really unnerving.

“It’s going to be okay,” Buffy said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “We’re going to fix everything, and Mom will be free from the spell before she even wakes up, okay?”

Dawn nodded and leaned back against her sister for a moment before pulling away and turning to look at her. “Are… are you sure you don’t need me to help? Because I can stay, you know.”

She didn’t like that she was being sent away, but at the same time… she was afraid of Willow. She’d been afraid ever since the threat to turn her back into energy. She didn’t remember what it had been like before she’d become human. She only remembered being Dawn. What would she be, if she wasn’t Dawn anymore?

“Dawnie, listen to me,” Buffy said, looking her right in the eyes. “I need you to be safe. And I need you to keep Thursday safe. Ben’s a great guy, but he’s going to be driving, and he’ll need to keep an eye on those two.” She inclined her head towards Riley and Mom. “So it’s up to you to take care of Thursday. Okay?”

Dawn nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” She wasn’t running away. She was keeping her niece safe. There was a big difference there.

Buffy opened her mouth to say more, but was interrupted by a car pulling into the drive and honking its horn. That had to be Ben with Spike and Thursday. Buffy hurried to the door to open it only seconds before a blanket covered Spike darted in, holding Thursday. Since she was going right back out into the car, it would have been simpler to just leave her there, but this way, Buffy got to hug her before they headed to the outskirts of town.

Dawn gave them a few moments together, using the time to make sure she had everything she needed packed into her backpack. Then she filled up a Styrofoam cooler with the jarred milk. The blood Thursday would need was in the car, along with her bottles and diapers. By the time she got back to the living room, Buffy was giving the baby a kiss goodbye before reluctantly handing her over to Ben.

Things seemed to move really fast, then. Riley and Mom were taken to the car, the former tied up and stuffed in the trunk while Mom was carefully put in the passenger seat. Dawn would be riding in the back with Thursday.

“You’ll call once it’s safe?” she demanded, turning towards Buffy. “You’ll call us, and we can come right home?”

“I’ll call,” Buffy promised.

Dawn nodded jerkily, then hugged her sister and Spike before rushing out to the car. It was going to be okay. Everything would be okay, and they’d come home. Buffy and Spike would make it all okay again. She believed in them.


	13. Chapter 13

In a corner of the Magic Box not easily seen from the research area, Tara carefully set up the things she’d need. It was all a little convoluted – requiring that Willow be distracted while Tara started the chant that had to be going before the stone was used – but she’d had to jerry-rig the entire thing during stolen moments when no one under Willow’s influence could see what she was doing. If she’d just had more power….

_No,_ she told herself firmly. Haphazardly throwing power at things was part of what had led Willow to the mess she was in now. Knowing how to make use of what you had was the way to go. And actually understanding the spells you were splicing together.

Tara took a deep breath to gather her scattered thoughts and poured blessed sand around herself in an open circle. Once she closed it, it would be time to start. Willow would feel the magic unless she was already distracted. The store was quiet at the moment, the only customers Graham’s four men. The man himself was down in the tunnels with Spike, since it was possible Willow would recognize him.

Tara glanced towards the nearest of the soldiers and gave him a small nod. That was the signal. The man nodded back and drifted off towards one of his friends, spreading the word. Not long now. She closed her eyes and just kept breathing, trying to keep herself calm. Any semblance of that state was shattered by the sudden sound of a commotion and a bloodcurdling scream.

_Oh god…._ She was going to be sick. She needed to get out there and help. She needed to…. She needed to get focused and get the spell going, or whatever was going on over there would all be for nothing. She opened her eyes and closed the circle. Then she began to chant.

 

**…**

 

A blast of magic slammed Buffy back into the wall, leaving her momentarily stunned. She watched, horrified and immobile, as Willow grabbed one of Graham’s men and stabbed the talons of her demon arm into his chest. He screamed and seemed to… to _wither_ there on the end of Willow’s claw, like she was sucking something out of him.

Buffy tried to get over there, to stop whatever Willow was doing, but spell she’d been hit with made it feel as if she was fighting her way through some kind of invisible glue. The other soldiers couldn’t even do that much. At least Giles, Xander, and Anya weren’t trying anything. They were just standing there, watching in vague confusion.

She’d only managed a few steps when Spike and Graham rushed up from the basement. Willow turned away from her and flung what Buffy was pretty sure was now a corpse at Graham, knocking him to the ground. The witch gave Spike a scornful, dismissive look.

“I’ll deal with you later,” she promised. “Maybe erase you from existence like that stupid baby.”

Buffy went dead still as the protective instinct caused by the ritual, as well as just the fact that she was a mother, roared up inside of her. Willow had tried to…? It obviously hadn’t worked. Thursday had ended up safely with her daddy, not just… gone. Had Willow done the spell wrong? Or had the fact that the ritual – which had been specially designed to make damn sure a baby came into existence – was still partially in effect somehow kept her safe?

It didn’t matter. Willow had tried to get rid of Thursday. _I’m going to kill her,_ she thought, rage boiling her blood. She just had to get to Willow and touch her with the stone. They’d both go into Willow’s psyche, where the bitch would be vulnerable. It’d be so easy to kill her, to keep her from ever trying to harm Thursday again. She’d….

It hit her like a punch to the gut. She wanted to kill Willow. Yeah, she’d messed up majorly, but.... It was _Willow_. The first friend she’d ever made in Sunnydale. The gluey-whatever spell didn’t stop Buffy as she reached into her pocket to pull out the stone, probably because she wasn’t making a direct move against her.

Just as Willow turned towards her again, Buffy threw the stone to Spike, hating herself for it. He hadn’t even had his soul for two weeks yet, and she was forcing him into a situation where he would have to choose to save someone… or kill her for the sake of everyone if she was too far gone. It wasn’t fair, but with the way Buffy felt right now, it was the only chance Willow had to get out of this alive. Spike caught the stone and stared at Buffy for a split-second that seemed to somehow last an eternity. Then he darted towards Willow.

“What are you gonna do, migraine me to death?” Willow asked mockingly.

“Nah, thought I’d try this instead,” Spike said, punching her in the face. “Seems a mite more effective, don’t it?”

While she stared at him in slack-jawed surprise, Spike took the opportunity to slap his hand over her mouth, forcing the stone inside. There was a flash of light, and the two of them crumpled to the floor in a heap.

 

**…**

 

Everything swirled and melded, coming together and breaking apart in a confusing kaleidoscope of color, shapes, and sounds. Slowly, the whole mess began to settle, and Spike found himself in a library. Willow was stood next to one of the shelves, sorting through a small stack of colored notebooks. She was dressed up like a little girl, the illusion of innocence broken by the black hole in the shape of a clawed demon arm that started at her left elbow.

“They all have to fit just right,” she murmured, carefully selecting a gray notebook and sliding it into the bookcase with several black ones. “Everything has to have an exact place, otherwise it’s, it’s just chaos.”

“Yeah, well, that’s life, innit?” he commented, pulling out the notebook and setting it on an empty shelf. The design was the same as the black notebooks, but it just didn’t feel right to keep it with the others. It didn’t belong there anymore. “It’s all about the chaos.” He cocked his head. “Which, if you think on it, is its own sort of order.”

“No! No, it all has to be just right.” She grabbed the gray notebook again and put it back where she’d had it the first time. “Exact patterns, everything just so. Otherwise it falls apart.”

She quickly gathered up the other notebooks from the stack and sorted them onto the empty shelf, leaving behind a small notebook that was constantly shifting colors, unsure of just what it was yet. Spike carefully picked that one up, holding it close to his chest while he watched Willow. A vibrant green notebook with tape of the same color along the edges was in the middle, the pages of a serene blue one woven together with its own. They were sandwiched between a bold red notebook and a teal one. A larger one, the cover a staid brown, loomed behind them.

Willow studied her handiwork for a moment, then went to another shelf and picked out an orangey-red notebook that somehow gave off insufferable wanker vibes. She used green tape to bind it to the red notebook. Ah, well, that explained the vibes, then, didn’t it? Willow gave it all another look over, then sighed in satisfaction before turning towards him with a sudden frown.

“That’s not supposed to be here,” she said, reaching for the little notebook he was holding.

Spike growled and clutched the notebook tighter as he slapped her hand away. It was _his_. Well, no, not _his_ his. Was the gray one, that, wasn’t it? This one was Thursday’s, and he was going to keep it safe from Willow’s grubby little paws.

“Give it to me,” she said, a warning note in her voice.

“She’s fine where she is right now,” Spike snapped, eying the bookcase. “She’s with me, and not muckin’ up your ‘perfect’ little collection here.”

Was bloody well obscene, it was. Everything perfect and orderly, ducks all lined up in a row. Made him come all over queasy, just looking at it. It was perfect for storing books, but that’s not what these were. Not really. Each one was a life, color coded and slotted into place the way Willow wanted it.

Spike narrowed his eyes and gave the thing a good, solid kick. The notebooks rearranged themselves, becoming a haphazard mess as some fell through the shelves and others floated up. Covers changed, becoming complex and multi-colored. When it was all over, even Willow’s special shelf had changed. A mostly purple notebook with little hearts and dollar signs all over it was resting next to the one that was still mostly teal. Cartoon characters dotted the cover of that one now, but held equal import with construction tools. Child and adult, working on achieving a comfortable balance.

Red was still the predominant color for Buffy’s notebook and there were no images on it, but a rainbow of colors zigzagged across the cover in what seemed like a patternless jumble at first glance. The green tape holding her fast to Riley was gone, as was the orange-red notebook itself. Now, a pink ribbon loosely surrounded the Slayer’s notebook and one that was all the shades of gray between black and white. Spike cocked his head as he studied the two of them. There seemed to be just enough room…. He carefully slid the little notebook with its flickering colors into the space between.

“No! No, that’s not right!” Willow wailed in distress. “None of that is right! It’s….” She trailed off suddenly, staring down at the floor.

The green notebook was there, torn free from its all-shades-of-blue companion. Other than that, it seemed unchanged. And yet…. Spike narrowed his eyes and bent to pick up the notebook. The entire front of it was concealed with green tape, hiding the true cover. Willow cried out in protest, but did nothing to stop him as he peeled it away. The edges first, which had been covered from the start. The vibrant green of growing things gave way to the murky green of decay.

Once that tape was gone, he tore away the rest, and the entire notebook changed in his hands, warping as if water had been carelessly spilt all over it. The main part of the cover was a dusky green and sprinkled with stick figure images of a little girl. A simplified version of Sunnydale University was overlaid with a little red schoolhouse.

Spike looked up at Willow. She was pale as a bloodless corpse, eyes looking almost too big for her face as she stared at the notebook. She swallowed convulsively, then slowly turned her head to look at her demon arm as if she’d never seen it before. A strange sound came out of her, one that was almost a scream, but hadn’t the energy to be fully formed.  

“What… what have I done?” she whispered hoarsely.

Instead of answering right away, Spike looked back at the notebook as if it held all the answers. Because it did. He carefully opened it, looking over the pages. Warped and water stained, the inks and colored pencil all smeared. His hands flickered oddly, going from the pale skin of a dead man to the somewhat darker pale of a live Englishman. Soul and demony self at odds, until he realized that both parts of his whole really were in agreement here. He closed the notebook gently without reading it. The words were too private and personal, and he’d gotten the gist of it from the drawings anyway.

_Bloody hell, Red,_ he thought. He almost felt sorry for her. If she hadn’t gone all dark side on them and made everyone dance to her tune, he might have taken her out for a drink or two, let her get sloshed right proper and work it all out.

She’d been a weak little thing for most of her life. Mousy and picked on. And then she’d found magic. Power literally at her fingertips, and no one about willing or able to tell her how to use it properly.

And then adulthood had reared its ugly head and began to devour her friends, leaving her behind. Feeling alone and in pain and suffering from the loss of her arm, of course the daft chit had thrown magic at everything instead of bloody talking to anyone about the problem. And now she’d mind-raped an entire town, tried to wipe an innocent sprog out of existence, and directly killed at least one person. Not that he was one to throw stones about that last, but it was going to eat at her once she was herself again.

Or more herself, because that was the real problem, wasn’t it? The demon arm may have opened her up to evil, but other than that, it hadn’t really added anything to her. It had just suppressed the part of her that might have thought twice when various selfish desires had bubbled up to the surface.

“You bollocksed everything up right proper, is what you did,” he told her bluntly. Sugar coating was for children, and it was time for Willow to bloody well grow up. “You used magic to make everyone your sodding puppets so they would watch you dance about like a fairy princess.”

“No! That’s not…. I was just trying to make everything better! I didn’t….”

He held her notebook out towards her, but she shrank away as if it were a venomous serpent. “’S all in here, Red.”

“No,” she whispered. “Don’t make me.”

“Read it.” He didn’t yell, but his voice was firm, and she reacted to it. She took the notebook. And she read, seeing her actions through the filter of the humanity powering the stone that had brought them into her mind.

Each turn of the warped pages painted a fresh wave of horror across her face until she finally cried out and threw it to the floor. It landed spine down, open to a drawing made all the more horrifying by the rainbows and flowers strewn on the page. A little girl stick figure of Willow with her claws dug into a stick figure man’s chest. Out in the real world, he’d never have been able to read Willow’s handwriting from that distance, but here, he could. “I fixed someone else today. My magic didn’t work on him, but I took his insanity away. He’s all better now.”

“I killed him,” she said, sounding numb. “He was crazy, and he could see….” She glanced towards her arm with a look of revulsion. “I told myself I was doing something good. He didn’t have to live as a crazy homeless man anymore.” She looked back at him. “You’re here to kill me, aren’t you?”

_Or to save you,_ he thought. But he didn’t say it. He hadn’t decided yet which way he’d go. From the look in her eyes, she was favoring death. She’d bodged everything up and didn’t want to have to deal with the consequences. There was a part of him that really wanted to oblige her. Enough that he approached and gently wrapped his hand around her throat, his thumb pressed against the pulse point. It would be so easy to make it stop. Snap her neck or choke her out. Watch the light go out of her eyes.

The demon in him was both hungry for it and a little sad. He’d always liked the girl. Saw a bit of himself in her, and he’d always thought she’d make a cute vampire. Now he had the proof of it. That’s basically what she’d done to herself. Still had a soul and all, but it hadn’t been loud enough to overcome the urge towards evil.

He could end it for her. Let her go out at the hands of a bigger bad while still at the height of her glory. But… she’d tried to destroy Thursday, and was the soul that pointed that bit out for consideration. He took a deep breath, drawing Willow’s scent in as he rested his forehead against hers. He could feel the movement of her throat under his fingers as she swallowed.

“Please, make it quick.”

He tilted his head to whisper into her ear. “You think that’ll work, do you? One big action to wipe the slate clean so you don’t have to feel the guilt of it all? Don’t have to ask for forgiveness? Could do that for you.” His hand tightened. “But until you’re ready to actually ask….” His voice went lower, almost loving. “I dub thee unforgiven, bitch.”

Then he moved, striking quicker than a cobra as he grabbed her demon arm and tore it away.

 

**...**

 

Willow moaned and struggled up to her knees as the Magic Box swam back into focus. Her demon arm was a puddle of disgusting goo on the floor, and she could feel that her hold on Sunnydale had been broken. As her vision cleared, she could see Buffy helping Spike to his feet, not even sparing her a glance. Giles and Xander were looking at her though, the former white lipped and angry and the latter looking like he was about to throw up.

“Xander, I... I’m sor-”

“Oh, god, Anya,” he said, cutting her off and turning away before she could finish her apology.

The ex-vengeance demon was huddled near the checkout counter, shaking. She flinched as Xander knelt beside her. He said something to her and gently touched her hair. Willow hadn’t been able to hear what he’d said, but it must have helped, because Anya threw herself into his arms and sobbed against his chest.

There was a sound from the shelves and Tara stepped out into the research area. Her eyes were red rimmed, like she’d been crying. Willow awkwardly got to her feet, wanting to hug her and tell her everything would be okay now.

“Tara, baby….”

Tara turned and walked away, leaving the store without a single word to her. And then Willow knew. It wasn’t okay. It might never be. She’d done something horribly wrong, and no amount of apologies or cookies was ever going to change that. She sank back down to her knees, feeling utterly lost and alone.


	14. Chapter 14

He’d failed her. Willow had needed the guidance of a firm hand, and he hadn’t provided it. Giles took his glasses off, holding them loosely in his hand as he leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. He was sitting on the floor in Buffy’s training room with Willow sprawled unconscious on a pile of mats beside him. He opened his eyes to gaze down at her.

She looked so innocent, like the shy child he’d met when he’d first come to Sunnydale to be Buffy’s new watcher. He’d become something of a surrogate father to them all, and had watched Willow take to magic like a fish to water. She’d made mistakes along the way, rather like a bumbling pup learning the use of its legs, or so he’d thought at the time.

There had been such joy and passion in it all that he hadn’t been able to bring himself to step in, not even after the mess she’d made with her Will be Done spell. His own magic had been steeped in the darkest parts of himself, and he… hadn’t wanted to taint her.  

 _Good show on that, old man,_ he thought in disgust. This is where his inaction had led. At a complete loss for what to do for her, he’d called the coven in Devon. Several members would be arriving in Sunnydale tomorrow evening to take Willow away. She was to be incarcerated for an undetermined amount of time and “reeducated” on the proper use of magic. Her power would be completely stripped from her for a time, followed by a slow reintroduction carefully controlled by the coven via a network of spells. Should she not toe the line, some of those spells would cause a momentary sharp shock.

If she gathered more power to her than she was allowed, there would be a shock and a loss of that power. Spells that weren’t sanctioned or were altered in any way? A shock and loss of whatever power she had. More spells than she had specifically been allowed? More of the same. Even after all she had done, he’d thought it a harsh thing to do to a girl barely twenty years of age.

The coven leader had pointed out that she wasn’t just a girl. She was a powerful witch who had committed very serious crimes against an entire city. If there was to be any hope of reintegration into society, she would have to first learn there were consequences to her actions. Only then could she be rehabilitated.

He would have continued to protest, perhaps even considered hiding Willow from the coven representatives if not for what had happened a mere hour ago. At the coven’s urging, he’d cast a spell they’d faxed him to render the girl unconscious and alert him if she attempted any magic before they could get there. He’d done it, even though he’d considered it unnecessary. He’d thought Willow much too subdued by what she’d done to try anything.

And then he’d felt the spell activate, tugging him towards the Magic Box. He’d found Willow in the main part of the store, passed out with several sprigs of Lethe’s Bramble strewn about. She’d been completely unaware of the coven’s planned arrival, much less the intended punishment, yet she’d obviously been preparing some sort of forgetting spell. She’d learnt nothing, apparently. Instead of facing the consequences of her actions and the people she’d hurt, she’d planned to erase the memories of her misdeeds. To try to “fix” everything by throwing more bloody magic at it.

If she went to England and was merely held and retaught, she’d continue to avoid all consequences. She’d continue hurting people under the mistaken belief that she knew what was best. She needed that firm hand he’d failed to provide, and a set consequence to face for breaking the rules. It was what would be best for her. And, quite frankly, anything less would be an insult to her victims.

He reached out to gently push a lock of hair from Willow’s face. He’d failed one of his children, and she was being sent away. _I will not fail the others,_ he vowed. They were growing up, but human beings were not birds. Just because they had left the nest didn’t mean that Buffy and Xander no longer had any need of him. And when they did, he would be there.

 

**…**

 

This wasn’t right. This couldn’t be happening. Willow knew she’d messed up. She’d hurt the people she loved. There had been a way, though, to make it all better. To take away the pain. But when she’d snuck into the Magic Box, something had gone wrong. She’d had enough Lethe’s Bramble to take away the memory of her betrayal, and then the next thing she’d known, she’d woken up in Buffy’s training room with a couple of strange women standing over her.

She could feel the weight of the spells they’d put on her. Magic that would supposedly punish her if she didn’t do what they wanted. Part of her itched to test herself against it, to pit her strength against theirs.

 _Not now,_ she told herself. She’d go to England, maybe have some fun, and when she came back, everyone would greet her with open arms and tell her how much they’d missed her. Right? She looked uneasily at the people who had come to the Magic Box to see her off. Xander, Tara, and, strangely, Spike. No Dawnie, no Buffy, not even Joyce. Buffy’s mom has almost been one to her as well, and she hadn’t come. Maybe they were running late because of the baby?

 _Or maybe they aren’t coming at all._ She didn’t want to think that. Because if that was true, maybe there really wasn’t a way to fix things. She refused to believe that. There had to be a way. Spike had refused to let her make a grand gesture, to absolve herself of what she’d done to her friends, to the people she’d kil…. No, no, she couldn’t think about that. That hadn’t been her. Not really. She’d hadn’t…. No one had been willing to accept an apology. Giles had stopped her from using Lethe’s Bramble. That just meant she had to get creative. She could do that.

“It’s almost time to go,” one of the witches said, breaking into Willow’s thoughts.

She swallowed hard. Already? No, she hadn’t even really had a chance to say goodbye. “But, but Buffy…”

“Isn’t coming, Red,” Spike said quietly, looking her right in the eye. His were both hard and oddly compassionate. “Still a mite homicidal over what you tried to do to Thursday.”

Oh. Right. All traces of compassion suddenly left his eyes, leaving Spike looking pretty homicidal himself. Willow shrank back and looked away, her gaze locking on Xander. He stepped forward to give her a quick hug, then backed away, not looking her in the eye at all.

“I… uh, have to get home. Anya’s waiting,” he mumbled.

“Xander, I….”

He did look at her then, and the sheer misery in his eyes hit her like a slap to the face. What had she done? Where was her happy, goofy Xan-man? “You’ve been my best friend since kindergarten, Wills, and I love you, but what you did to me? How you made me act and treat Anya? That was seriously messed up. I need time. Maybe… maybe when you can come home….” He trailed off and shook his head. “I need to go.”

She tried to call out to him, but her throat closed up and the words wouldn’t come. Oh god, what had she done? She hadn’t meant to do any of this. She’d just been upset about losing her arm and being treated like a child. Sucking up the power from those forbidden books had been a mistake. Just a terrible mistake. Why couldn’t anyone see that? She turned towards Tara, hoping for some understanding.

“Goodbye, Willow.” Tara’s voice was soft and sad, and there was a disturbing finality to her words.

Willow gave her a wobbly smile. “I’ll, um, I’ll call whenever they let me.”

Her heart sank as Tara slowly shook her head. “No, Willow. I think it, it needs to be a clean break.”

A clean break? What was that supposed to mean? She couldn’t…. “Tara, are you… are you breaking up with me?”

She’d known Tara was upset. It was understandable after what she’d… what the arm… what had happened, but this? This just couldn’t be happening. There were tears in Tara’s eyes, but there was also strength and determination.

“You taught me how to be strong, Willow. How t-to not be a victim. If… if I’m going to be the person your love helped me to be… then I can’t be with you. N-not after what you did to me. Goodbye,” she said again, her voice breaking as she turned to go.

“Tara, wait! That, that wasn’t me! It was…. The magic. I can stop the magic, just please don’t do this!”

She wasn’t stopping. Why wasn’t she stopping? Without really thinking about what she was doing, Willow started to gather power. She just wanted Tara to stop and _listen_. Her thoughts and the magic both scattered as an unpleasant static shock sizzled through her entire body. Then Tara _did_ stop and just looked at her, her expression saying clearly that Willow hadn’t even lasted a full minute after claiming she’d stop.

“Please,” Willow whispered. “I can fix it, just please…”

Tara turned away again and walked out the door, leaving Willow feeling numb. Why wouldn’t anyone let her fix it? She’d made a mistake. She got that. She really did. That just meant she was supposed to _fix_ it. There was a sigh behind her followed by a hand suddenly on her shoulder.

“Can’t fix everything, Red,” Spike said quietly. “Some things, it don’t matter how much duct tape you slap on. They just stay broken.”

“It’s not fair!”

“Actually, it bloody well _is_. What you did to everyone? _That_ wasn’t fair. This though?” He shook his head. “You’ve made your bed, and now you’ve to lie down in it. Good luck an’ all with that.” He patted her on the shoulder before striding towards the door. Then he was gone, too.

No. He couldn’t be right. Things didn’t just stay broken. Except… she remembered kindergarten, suddenly, and the time she’d broken the yellow crayon. It had stayed broken, but she’d learned to be more careful. She turned to face the coven members.

“I’m ready to go,” she said quietly. Maybe the only thing she could fix right now… was herself.

 

**…**

 

If real life was a Lifetime original movie, Buffy was pretty sure she’d be rushing to get to the Magic Box right about now for a last minute reconciliation with Willow. It wasn’t, though, so she just curled up tighter against her mom. They were sitting together on the couch, the Summers matriarch’s left arm around her eldest child while her right cuddled her sleeping granddaughter against her chest. Dawn was up in the attic, drowning her sorrows in soda and TV, leaving Spike, as he put it, as the sole representative of the Summers Clan.

The Summers clan…. When exactly had Spike become one of them? Not that she was arguing against it, she just wasn’t sure when it had happened. Had it been when he’d had his name put down as William Summers on Thursday’s birth certificate? Or had it been even before that? Either way, he’d been absorbed into the family. And Willow was being pushed out. Almost like they were trading one Will for another.

She frowned suddenly. Willow had done some horrible things, but so had Spike. He’d done more and probably worse, but he was being accepted while Willow was being cast out. Why was that okay? Even before he’d gotten his soul, Buffy had been getting closer to him while drifting away from her best female friend.

 _It’s because he’s a vampire,_ she realized. Vampires were specifically designed to eat people and be evil. Spike’s struggle to turn his back on all of that was technically all wrong and perverted. Just as much as what Willow had done. The difference was, Spike’s “perversion” was leading towards good.

“Do you want me to order some pizza?” Mom asked, drawing Buffy’s attention. “We could bring down Thursday’s bassinet and call Dawn down. Spike should be home before the pizza gets here, so we can just have a nice, family movie night.”

Buffy smiled. “I like that idea.” She carefully hugged her mother, then scooted away so the other woman could hand over Thursday and stand up. “No pineapples,” she called as Mom went to call the pizza place. “Spike says he’s going to ‘bloody well suss out a way’ for vampires to blow chunks if he even _sees_ another pineapple.”

“Gotcha,” she said with a slight smile.

Buffy resettled herself on the couch and looked down just in time to see Thursday open her little eyes and yawn. She was so cute, bundled up in the blanket her daddy had knitted just for her. A hat from the same source was keeping her head warm. The baby smiled and gurgled at her before flailing one little arm. The tiny fist at the end wrapped around a lock of Buffy’s hair and yanked. Hard.

“Ouch,” she muttered, gently freeing her hair and replacing it with her finger. That finger was immediately inserted into Thursday’s mouth and sucked on. “No blood until Daddy’s home.”

Her voice was thick with unshed tears. She’d almost lost her baby. If she had…. If Willow had managed to erase Thursday out of existence, Buffy would have killed the witch. And it wouldn’t have been because of the ritual.

The front door opened, and there he was. The father (sort of) of her child. Evil, good, snarky, kind, a major asshole who had tried to kill her, a loving man who always tried to do the best for the women he loved. He was all that and more. And woven through it all, he was Friday’s child. Loving and giving.

She patted the spot on the couch beside her and said, “Welcome home.”


End file.
